IMHO, there is a great traditional-style game within the Cypher System, but it needs more than the polish-up that came with the "Revised" Cypher System. I have been hoping for more advancements of the Cypher System. Something that either evolves the system further* or leans heavily into the existing system, but the MCG feels like it is mostly treading water with the system.
* A stripped down basic version of Invisible Sun could've been that evolution, but that game is basically a dead end now.
I'm very confused here. First you say, in no uncertain terms, "the Risk Pool is also not your hit points." Yet then you say "the same pool you can use to modify difficulty through expenditures is also your health pool...." So...is the pool totally not hit points or is it truly actually hit points? This also doesn't seem to address any of the concerns regarding death spirals, as others have noted.
I would like to add one additional comment to your earlier post. I understand where the concern regarding death spirals is coming from, but I don't think it's the case
per praxis. Yes, your Might/Speed/Intellect pools are effectively your HP, and yes, you expend points from those pools to power your abilities. There are a fair number of mitigators in the game for helping players manage those pools better: e.g., armor, edge, skill training/specialization, etc. I have run Numenera a fair amount, but I can scarcely recall a PC go into a death spiral in my games. It's possible, however, that if I ran another Cypher System game - e.g., Claim the Sky (superheroes), Predation, Stay Alive, Godforsaken, etc. - that this death spiral would be a greater risk or more pertinent part of play. However, in the the case of Numenera, I am genuinely struggling to think of a time a character went into a death spiral. I've probably seen way more downed players in 5e than in Numenera. If the game has a death spiral, it's not a particularly rapid death spiral.
I tried getting into Numenera three times since it came out, and each time I felt lost about what a GM is supposed to do with the game. Walk the giant world and encounter random weird stuff?
But I guess that's more an issue with the Numenera setting than the Cypher system mechanics.
Numenera is effectively a science-fantasy D&D setting that handwaves all the science that is supposedly behind the magic and history of the setting. Why PCs would adventure in the Ninth World is much the same reason why you would adventure in Greyhawk or Eberron.
That said, there is a better sense of the "whyfor" after the release of Numenera: Destiny & Discovery (aka Numenera 2). One of the major criticisms of "Numenera 1" was that it talked a lot about making a better future, but there was little to no support for that. Numenera 2 introduced new types focused on salvaging numenera, crafting/building with numenera, and leading communities, along with more robust crafting and community building rules.
So the obvious thing to do with Numenera's Ninth World nowadays is to put the characters in a settlement, present the settlement with some potential problems, and have the PCs explore, build, and interact with that Ninth World so that they can improve life in that settlement. But you can still run the game as mercenaries who are dungeon-delving ruins for "shins," artifacts, and other loot.