I have the feeling that our "differences", after you've corrected some of my
more obvious mistakes written in haste; are indeed in terms of what
constitutes a microstate and macrostate and even how to define equilibrium.
I suspect that this is nothing more nor less than statements of
interpretation that arise from the philosophical differences (should I say
meta-physical) between the "information theory camp" and the
"traditionalists". I'm guessing from what you have written ( the card
example, designed to tweak Leigh) that you are rather firmly in the
"information theory" camp.
Do you think the above is a reasonably accurate assesment?
BTW Have you seen Robertson's "Statistical Thermophysics" text? If not, or
for other readers; this is a fairly recent text (1993), that approaches the
study from the information theory standpoint and I think might make a good
introductory text to this approach.