MDX flight planned inland because... he couldn't swim, right?
Sorry mate, don't quite follow you?
Coastal flight plan, coastal track, no iced up out of control aircraft.
Yes, just like an almost identical flight in an almost identical aircraft separated by only minutes. If AZC was so easily able to do it, that would suggest to me that the airspace wasn't really an issue.
The only difference of consequence in the planning stages of those two flights was the guy holding the map.