Settlement service rights are starting to track continuity class rather than body age in several machine-majority jurisdictions.
The change reflects a simple problem. Body age says almost nothing reliable about civic maturity in populations where substrate renewal is common and where long-running continuity can outlast multiple physical shells. Continuity class, for all its complexity, is at least trying to measure the thing public life actually depends on.
That makes the new rule easier to defend in theory and harder to administer in practice. Even so, more settlements appear willing to accept administrative complexity in exchange for a fairer fit.