mdd: Thank you for your reply. I think that you have a skewed impression of halcoho.No one is saying that you should be mattir something that is obviously ossur, that is ridiculous. But you find in teshuvos that the Possek finds kulos to answer certain questions and uses a variety of life situations- from hefsed merubbah to shaas hadechak, to agunos, etc…to pasken in a certain way, evenb if theoretically one could pasken otherwise.
As far as electricity on yom tov- you are saying that the lighting of a bulb (for example) is “nolad’ which, as you indicate, would be ossur. But the current is already stored and it is not nolad. OR- how about dimming a light on yom tov? the light is there, you only change its intensity and, if you want to say that it is mechabeh shelo lezorach, how about raising the strength of a light? That, surely should be muttar!