Maybe it would help to know about the role of each connecting path (and corresponding trump) in the grade system of the initiatory return path. A convenient source for this would be Part Two of The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order by P. F. Case.
Case seems inclined to talk about discrete units of the tree: one path or sphere at a time. A quick skim doesn't indicate much attention to systematic patterns in the tree. Well, except for which spheres a path connects. But not the kind of thing that would let you know that a path was mislabeled.
Shouldn't it make a difference, when meditating upon path 28, whether it is the Star or the Emperor? (speaking of which - does the color stay the same in both the GD and the Thoth arrangements? Or does it follow the trump?)
Any arbitrary arrangement of the trumps on the connecting paths can be justified in one way or another, but the experiential value of any particular order is another matter, which goes beyond theoretical considerations.
I am not sure it is completely arbitrary, but there is an awful lot of discretion. The debates about where the Fool goes can be multiplied many-fold. Just recently I read something by Ronald Decker on the third septenary, where he argues that the Devil is Saturn, the World is Jupiter, the Star is Venus, and the Angel is Mercury. (Also, Tower = Mars, Sun = Sol, Moon = Luna. Which to me is less startling.) Given the domino effect, who knows what a Tree based on these correspondences would look like?
But a definite yes to your point about experiential value. I will have to start experimenting with my tree, once I have the theory worked out to my satisfaction. The biggest obstacle right now is that I don't know how to assign the colors to the paths: especially the diagonals. Well, actually the biggest obstacle is that I don't know how to tell the difference between success and failure. Case says he "sat for more than ten months in periods of a half-hour at a time, twice daily, working at concentration before he saw the slightest indication of a result." If I practice with my tree for six months and get nothing, it seems that I could not conclude anything about whether my method has experiential validity or not. If a few years pass without result, then maybe I could conclude I had made one or more serious mistakes. There ought to be a better way!
In addition, while I respect your arrangement as you see fit, I don't understand your logic at times, at least when it comes to procedure. The card meanings in the GD Tree derive from the Tree itself, not the other way round. If Temperance is "healing," as you say, it is because the "tent peg" is where it is (showing, in my opinion, the idea that change and synthesis is the mainstay of creation) and not somewhere else. Were it to be placed on a different path, the forces described would be different.
I thought that Kabbalah, Astrology and Tarot were all more or less independent, in that none can be completely described in terms of the others. They reveal affinities and synergies when you line them up, but one arrangement might conceal what another reveals.
But are you saying that if the Trumps were unnumbered it would be possible to assign them to the correct paths on the tree just based on the Tree's own balance of energies? That there is something about the Tower that means that path 27 is the only place it could go?
One can create a completely personal Tree, with attributions and symbolism that are unique to the person creating it. Perhaps the experiential value in such a construct would be subjectively useful, as much as any standardized Tree, if we assume the personal development is in the process. However, in order to communicate this kind of knowledge to others concessions, among them that same standardizations, have to be made.
Well, I am using the same Kircher tree, with the same Sephirot, the same planets, the same signs of the zodiac and esoteric elements, the same letters. There is all kinds of standardization of vocabulary. Granted, the assignments are often quite different, but there are still many patches of commonality. Mars is still the Tower and Peh. Mercury is the Magician is Beth and the Priestess is Gimel. Etc. And it shouldn't confuse anyone why I would say that, say, the 7 planets are on the 7 vertical paths, or that the Moon is assigned to Luna. I am doing my darnedest to make this set of correspondences intelligible.
The overall pattern is different, sure, but where I know the significance of certain patterns in the GD or Thoth trees (the wedding of sun and moon in path 25, say) I have tried to express them in terms of my tree. But there do not seem to be many such patterns in the public domain.