Type stuff aren't supposed to be a changing thing. Just check the types that have 0 boosts. Or boosts that are nothing more than codification of what we had in flavor (see: rock and water). So if you say "they are garbage" then, well, they are? Garbage, niche, situational, if you want I can get more synonyms. They are that way, because they were made that way. and the fact that they are that way don't make them outclassed or problematic. And if there is no real issue that affects gameplay, we aren't fixing the game, we are changing it, doing creation.
We do little to no creation. We only tweak stuff that are wrong. Problematic. We don't change or create stuff for the heck of it. The creation part is not a matter of policy. Its a matter of game creation and that comes before policy kicks in. A matter of doing arbitrary changes to virtually anything, based on fluid and subjective parameters like personal preferance and what the person wants the game to be. And since it gets out of hand really fast, Deck decided to centralize everything on him (which means that now it falls upon the moderation staff to decide upon it).
The only part of STABs that was possibly problematic, that caused an issue, a severe unbalance was Priority Protect Passing. That gave rock types a considerable boost on doubles+. As for the other types: does steel become a worse type because it has no boosts? no. Does Dragon and Fairy become worse types because their boosts are easily forgetted? No. You play them out as usual and don't go thinking "oh if I had a type boost I would have a chance here". Any type boost (heck change or even nerf) for any type would be convenient, not necessary. "Convenient" = arbitrary and that is NOT to be dealt under policy, or else any and every aspect of ASB would be eligible for a change and last thing we know we would be playing an entirely different game. "Buff Culture" is a misleading expression really. In a nutshell we aren't change stuff that should be changed, the proposals here is to change stuff because we want them to change, because it would be convenient or nice and that is subjective, arbitrary and that reasoning can be used to change any and every aspect of ASB, even the ones that are "fine" as is.
"Oh but X type effect isn't as good as Y type effect!". I agree. But it was by design. If that difference is not problematic to the point of considerably affecting gameplay (like priority passed protect affects), then changing it is "arbitrary" not "necessary". We wouldn't be "fixing" the game, we would be changing the design of it, the intentions behind its creations and that goes beyond policy and falls upon the "buff culture" umbrella, even if it isn't actual buffing.
But making something clear: This is what I think. All changes proposed here are "for the heck of it", in my vision and as such aren't to be handled by the council, but via Word of God. And since Word God is divided in three triangular pieces (got the reference huehuehue) I decided to stop the discussion and making the change that everybody I asked deemed necessary. If the other mods feel that those changes are to be made, we can resume the discussion, but it would still be to be decided via word of god and not via council voting.
tl;dr: Buff Culture = changes (not necessarily buffs) that are too subjective or arbitrary and don't aim to fix problems that actually affect gameplay considerably. They are to be handled by word of god and not council. I fiated the protect part because it was unanimous. The other stuff I, as policy head, stopped because they are, at heart, arbitrary changes based on arbitrary suggestions that aim not to fix a broken part so it fulfills the intention behind it, but change the intention itself and those can't be made by council, so the discussion was pointless as it won't be sent to be booth. But if the mod team (or the majority of it) decides that those changes are convenient to be made, then we can resume the discussion on where we left off, with the difference that the final decision will be made by the mod team, not the council.
I haven't consulted IAR or DF on this btw and did that due to my own duties as policy head. If they both disagree with me you can consider the above part overruled and someone (read: not me, this is too confusing as is) can move forward to slating and stuff like that.