mahgister,
There are many manifestations of clarity, as you say. Simply put, clarity is the accurate transmittal of anything you evaluate. If the visual is an impressionist scene, then if the camera picture of it removes the fog and changes it into a collection of sharp edges, that is not clarity--it is just distortion. Clarity, or high fidelity to the impressionist scene would preserve the exact nature of it, as closely as possible.
An example of deliberate vagueness was Furtwangler's (F) opening of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony. Toscanini (T) and others took the score literally, with the soft tremolos, but F wanted the strings to be NOT uniform. An audio system playing the F recording would not be accurate if it sounded like T, and vice versa.
So for audio, I prefer the concept of "accuracy" to "clarity." In other matters of life, I want conversations to be well thought out and expressed without uncertainty or ambiguity. This is hard to do, so editors function to help the writer express more clearly what he is trying to say. There can never be too much clarity in these matters.
Live music is wonderful of course, but most listeners are not in the best seat. Even the compromised seat is a unique experience, but I have found that the best seat makes a big difference for maximum appreciation of the music. I hope you listen to those Mercury recordings which were designed to give the most clear perspective that is better than any seat. A great audio system playing these Mercury recordings is wonderful.