This node notwithstanding, what would one gain in the long run from a "simplified" form for the example given? How often does one build a regex in this way and then try to read it?

Not exactly a common use case, or that should've been built in... I can come up with two examples:

In both cases trying to print the resulting expression for debugging leads to something incomprehensible that itself needs to be debugged.

In reply to Re^2: Tidying and simplifying a regular expression by Dallaylaen
in thread Tidying and simplifying a regular expression by Dallaylaen

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