> so passionately about the reverence of `co.uk`

It's not reverence? I think that you're missing that it was a requirement. Basically every country (that followed ICANN's original rules) does this: .com.au, .co.nz, .co.jp, .com.mx, .co.ke (+ the org/net variants for each country)

The US is the only country where registering .com was allowed by ICANN (and not .com.us or something).

ICANN relaxed these rules in the 2010s I think, so now you can register 2LDs at most/all of those country TLDs.