Contra! Dude, I'm excited to have your feedback.

That's the wrong section of Pohle's book. I do not take De Lugo's view of dividing the realms of validity. Rather, I take the position of "Bellarmine, De Lugo, Hallier, Vasquez, Maldonatus, Ledesma, Billuart, Berti, Gotti, and others" (see this page. https://archive.org/details/sacramentsdogmat04pohluoft/page/66/mode/2up for explanation).

Basically, on this view, the Church can add instruments for validity to a particular rite.

(1) I doubt this, Hughes actually does a good job of showing that Pole utilized the decree to declare the orders invalid. Not to mention, as Guibert, SJ documents, "Already, in 1520, Cajétan, in his Commentary on the [Summa] IIIa of Saint Thomas, invokes the “auctoritas generalis Concilii Florentini sub Eugenio IV”, concerning the form of baptism (pro Armenis decree which he quotes verbatim)"

2. This point I conceed there are some solid differences between AC and the Decree to the Armenians, but there are some other points to consider.

I. It is still a weighty document, according to Guibert, SJ , again "If one had to look for a term of comparison among the recent acts of the Holy See, one could think of certain doctrinal encyclicals of Pius IX or of Leo XIII, for example the latter's letter to Cardinal Gibbons on Americanism, in 1899. , or that of his predecessor to the Archbishop of Munich on the errors of Frohschammer in 1862"

II. Pope Paul VI quotes it in his decree declaring the annointing with oil as the matter for Chrismation. So it still has weight enough to act as precedent.

Thanks for your feedback, much appriciated.