A few observations on this thread, which is yet another on the debate over which house system to use...although this one actually went along very nicely.
1...waybread, you da bomb! Seriously? I tried using Valens' method for calculating the ASC and gave myself a headache with it. I am super impressed that you actually tried recreating his charts (and more than a bit ashamed that I haven't attempted Valens since I discovered Sahl and Masha'Allah.)
2. When we talk about Ptolemy using equal houses, it has to be made clear that his version of equal houses varies differently from the equal houses charts we can get today. For reference, Ptolemy was what brought us to the 5* rule (in any quadrant based system, whether time or space divided, a planet within 5* of the cusp of the next house is considered to be in that next house.) Equal sign houses today, as widely used in the UK, base all houses on the degree of the ASC. It's like a riff on WSH, in that we can find the cusp of the WSH more easily when that cusp marks the start of the house. Today's version of equal sign houses start each house at the degree ascending.
Ptolemy's "equal houses" start from 5* prior to the ASC and go to 30* from that point. If you have a circle and crayons, you can see how this is different.
3. That Lilly was using Regiomontanus house divisions because that was the only published table of houses at the time should strike no one as unusual. Nor should it be found particularly peculiar that most modern astrologers do rely on Placidus houses, since in the 20th century THAT was the most easily accessible table of houses.
I've never attempted calculating a table of houses. Why? Because it is pretty freaking hard, and at this point someone has done the work for me. That I knew the reason certain astrologers used certain house systems? It should be completely obvious to anyone who is really studying the foundations of the craft. We don't need to have arguments or debates on house systems if we really understand what house systems do or are. It is most unfortunate that <most> of today's astrologers think that a website and an name makes you an expert, yet can't even understand the evolution of house systems...or how to use a telescope to look at the stars.
4. That This is the traditional forum has like zero weight here at AW. People always want to come and post about how relying on something from the past is outdated, without learning the tradition, and this always devolves into a "I should be allowed to post my opinions everywhere on the forum debate." Unless those posts are specifically called out (which unless treading carefully could violate other forum rules) to the personal attention of the moderators, nothing happens. Which means, waybread, that off topic conversations can totally happen here of all places unless or until someone reports them.. And even then the moderation is lacking.
5. About WSH. It is beautiful and does have more than a symmetrical value. It is not entirely an imperfect system. There is extant proof that the likes of Sahl, Masha'Alla, Abu Ali...wow, most of the Persian astrologers, who came next in line in the Western Tradition, were looking at a more quadrant based system...yet continued to count signs for significators.
It may have evolved from the idea that a planet within so many degrees of an angle was angular, succedent, or cadent from that angle...something else anyone with nothing more than an understanding of subtraction can find...
Poryphory was not a division of time nor space, but merely a trisecting of the arc between the ASC and the MC...and yes, in antiquity they were quite able to discover the exact degree culminating...just like they figured out precession and finally decided it was too much to worry about...just like they built the freaking pyramids. For those who think we have evolved more and so what tradition has to teach us is either lame, lacking, or out of touch in modern world...go. Build me a pyramid out of nothing but your sheer intellect. Let's see how far you get
WSH works. Not just for the simplicity of it (think of the Gordian Knot) but because it works. For those of us lame enough to need to have a calculator do the maths...any quadrant/space/time/continuum system is going to work as an overlay to the WSH chart.