Is this more or less ironclad than the term "authorized"?
Hard to tell if you're trying to make a point or trying to be clever, but there is a real answer to this.
It's a billion times more ironclad. You know how I've discussed (even had a whole thread!) about boilerplate language? Well, one advantage of that is that boilerplate ... is boilerplate. It's common. To start with, every attorney and every judge who reads a severance clause knows exactly what "held" means. Second, even if you ran into someone who didn't, the clause doesn't make sense without that meaning- because it then refers to the "party that obtained the ruling," which only makes sense in the context of a court case. Which ends with the court "holding" that a provision is invalid.
There is no ambiguity in that at all.
Now, I've repeatedly stated that a major problem with the OGL 1.0(a) is the poor drafting. So, let's look at the provision in question-
9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.
When you read this, there's a few things to note. First, most contracts have a boilerplate provision that says that you don't use the titles of sections to interpret them. This one? Nope. So "Updating the license" is part of the contract.
Next, this means that the contract can be updated. How? Well, Wizards will publish an updated version of it! Cool. So ... what happens then? Well, then you can use any
authorized version of the contract.
Huh. Okay. So ... what does that mean? Is update defined or otherwise referred to? There's one reference to "update" in Section 6, but that doesn't help. So .... no. What about authorized? Authorized HAS to be defined or in there, right?
Nope.
So this is where it gets special. We all have ideas in our heads. Maybe you've heard from Ryan Dancey had to say about what he thought. Maybe you're thinking about what everyone knows to be true. But if you can push that down the memory hole and just focus on that provision ... it's not clear at all. At best, it's ambiguous. At worst, from a textual standpoint, the existence of authorized versions of the contract implies that in updating the license, in providing updated versions, Wizards determined which versions are ... authorized. Including which prior versions.
So yeah- it is completely different.