I don't understand this about edits (Re: Unabasheded laziness and the phone edit)

[Fairlight]

On Fri, Aug 06, 2004 at 03:56:00AM -0400, Fairlight, the prominent pundit,
witicized:
> 
> FLPHONE  \ [<"("> N N N <")"> ([!"-"!]<" ">)] N N N (<"-">[!" "!]) N N N N 
>          | N N N <"-">[!" "!] N N N N

I released this, and I did test it, and it works.  There's one thing I
don't understand, however.

The outermost brackets (match the very first square bracket with its
closing one right before the prefix section in the long-form side of the
edit) are apparently extraneous in this.  

Originally, I had them there because I was trying to be more elegant than
having two edits logically OR'd.  The way I wrote it, it was originally:

\ [<"("> N N N <")"> ([!"-"!]<" ">)] N N N (<"-">[!" "!]) N N N N

The outermost brackets there were meant to say, "If the area code and its
separator are present, fine; if not, don't sweat it, they're an optional
component of the edit."

The problem was, all short-forms without an area code failed.  So I went
back to John's short-form OR and modified it so that it was semantically
equivalent to my own logic with regards to being able to use either symbol.
I then proceded to post it without removing the extraneous brackets.

My question is:  -Why- doesn't it work the way I intuit it should from the
documentation?

mark->
-- 
Fairlight->   ||| "So I open my door to my enemies / | Fairlight Consulting
  __/\__      ||| and I ask, 'Could we wipe the      |
 <__<>__>     ||| slate clean?' / But they tell me   | http://www.fairlite.com
    \/        ||| to please go fsck myself-- / You   | info at fairlite.com
              ||| know you just can't win..." --     |
              ||| Gilmour/Floyd                      |