On point. Could there ever be a better place to post this than here and now?
The definition used for regulatory dark matter is; “Regulatory actions taken by departments and agencies that are subject to little scrutiny or democratic accountability.”
No, no, you shall not fly the GA8.
Another method of measuring red tape is to count the number of restrictive clauses contained in regulation. This method has been used to great effect in British Columbia in Canada, and also briefly in Queensland under the Newman government
e.g. "[A private or aerial work aircraft]
must not be operated unless:", the most favoured syntactic construction peppering all of aviation regulations in OZ.