Arkaeyn
King
And what I've said is that the second one is not part of the criteria. The fact that you can list some capitals that were also important cities in their own right doesn't mean anything. To justify this you'd have to find an example of Firaxis actually doing what you're proposing: Selecting a more important city as the first city at the expense of the historical capital.
It's not part of the criteria according to you. And there are multiple civilizations for whom "historical capitals" are not used. St. Petersburg, Chang'an, Bonn, just to name a few. The Persians are littered with them. Sumerian "capitals" were more like a series of rising and falling city-states. So were the Greeks. Look up the importance of Karakorum, and ask yourself why Xanadu/Shengdu isn't even in the Mongol list.
I think it's a lot less cut and dried than you're making it sound. If you disagree so strenuously, it's not horribly difficult to change.