Rosanne
Well I think you have to try and look at the time the deck was published.The "veils" aren't the cards themselves, but the lack of information given about them by the creator. Waite's vow of secrecy left us with a deck that we have to explore basically on our own where most of the other Golden Dawn members that published decks explained themselves rather thoroughly.
The general public's view of cards was that you played a card game with cards or you had your Fortune told with them. We have much more now- the Thoth was published decades later than RWS. There were some 'cigarette cards' out there. The public of England had no idea about the History of Tarot- or the cards of Italy or France or Spain in general. Maybe Waite thought the cards would speak for themselves (esoterically) and they do if you carefully look at the images. In the scheme of things, the esoteric society was small and their books and info was private in the main. These questions only come up now because we have at our finger tips, especially with the web, knowledge. Who knew about Tarot and Individuation back in 1910? Waite did not have a public relations team and printers went with a LWB that fits inside the box- you get the same thing with say,Canasta today. Money was hard to come by for items like cards- add a book and we would not have what we have today. Who was into Kabbalah back then? Who understood about Astrology in the way the RWS and Thoth depicts it? A select few only. A hundred years and we have a forum like this- multiple decks- understanding of how you can access the mystery of secret societies, and their personal growth ideals, and readings by people for themsleves and others. A garden in Italy of Tarot sculpture, I doubt would ever have been thought of in 1910. A library of Jewish mysticism is available to give us insight. We are very lucky and I think this is all because of PCS's cards. So regardless, it worked, whether for money or not- and it got you a Tarot deck/s sworm09 and a search for how to use it, give it and yourself meaning- so it does not really matter about Waite's Oath or not does it?
~Rosanne