Spanners,
Rather than rubbish, your clarification re-enforces my statement, with the slight caviet that we are disscusing airworthiness related defects (I thought that was a given, but obviously not.)
You've therefore quoted chapter and verse for H721 that his Senario 1 is not airworthiness related, there fore dispatch is permissable, but senario 2 clearly is, and therefore is either covered by the MEL, or dispatch is illeagal.