The hardware and software making the decision to wake the device isn't necessarily privy to concepts like "user" or "intent"; At that layer, it's all just signals. Someone has to design the system to interpret what those signals/events are supposed to lead to (e.g. should connecting a cable to a closed laptop wake it up? What if the thing on the other end of that cable is a mouse, or a storage device, or a charger, or a docking station? What if I jiggle my Bluetooth mouse, causing it to re-establish its connection to the laptop's Bluetooth radio? Should other state be considered before making a decision?).

The fact that such a subsystem exists isn't an indication of malice or a subversion of your will. There will be bugs in such a system, but the system still needs to be there.

But all of those cases should be governed by a very simple overarching rule: If the laptop lid is closed, assume that it is in a closed bag with no cooling available to it.

Because that is the usecase that hibernate is for. It makes laptops convenient by allowing you to just close the lid, put it in a bag, go somewhere, take it out of the bag, and then open it and continue working. If you need to tell people that they need to shut down their computers properly before putting them into bags, you have just produced a vastly inferior product.

This is an area where Microsoft desperately needs a Chief-making-it-not-suck-Officer. Someone who can just take that surface laptop, notice that some idiot actually wrote that you are supposed to shut it down instead of hibernating to put it in a bag, and yell at people until the product is fixed. Because right now it's broken.

Except your rule isn't a rule at all, it's just you assuming everyone else has the same usage pattern as you (they don't).

Pre-covid I had many co-workers who would sit down, plug their laptop into the dock, and work the whole day without ever opening the lid.

I've also spent 15+ years with a laptop connected to my TV that never has the lid open, and I definitely expect it to wake up when I sit on the couch and wiggle the Bluetooth mouse.

That's because the parent comment's rule was incomplete. The correct rule would be: lid closed, with no external displays or external power connected.

That is called ‘poor quality system design’ - it isn’t a feature.

If you insisted on telling the machine to do everything it does, you'd get nothing done. I suppose you could use an abacus.

Expecting a computer to not do random insane unexpected shit is too much to ask for I guess?

That depends entirely on what you consider insane. MacOS for example does so many things that I consider utterly batshit insane, but here we are. Lots of people love it. It's a given that a consumer operating system will do many, many things without direct user input.