I do like to think about these things
... however.
I'm not sure if I agree with this statment.
"Telescopes don't actually make anything appear brighter than with the naked eye, they only magnify."
I'm no expert, but you say that surface brightness will stay the same with different telescopes, this may be true if you compare a large telescope plus high magnification and a smaller telescope with small magnification. But isn't this bias? A larger telescope captures more light and produces a brighter image. Whether you decide to use higher magnification and therefore spread that light out again I think is up to the user. When your eye, a small scope and a large scope are all compared on equal terms, where all variables are the same ie. magnification, FOV etc. The images are brighter as you increase aperature.
I find your other points about resolution and visibility very interesting and I will continue to ponder these.