BS 1363 has the advantage of being designed in 1946 after we had the best part of Britain's cities flattened by nazi bombers, V Bombs and crude Ballistic Missiles- [ yeah, I know, Boo Hoo ] - and before the bean-counters began to run manufacturing. I was a kid then, and we used to collect schrapnel, lumps of Heinkels and bits of bomb casings as a hobby- it beats collecting stamps for street cred! We had to rebuild with minimal use of copper, which led to the Ringmain. It's existance keeps the BS1363 plug alive- because all those existing Ringmains need fused plugs which need Ringmains which....
If we redesigned today, those same VP bean-counters would inevitably come up with a material-lite product prone to the very faults that Trumpy pointed out in his OP. Anyone remember the free plastic toys out of the Kelloggs Corn Flakes boxes? A direct descendent of Shuko!
