My short post that asked for replies has only garnered one, by a brave soul who admitted not having ever given the subject much thought. (Scroll down to see the Q and A under Saturday, September 29th.)
A round cover, if it has an adequate little lip on the rim, cannot fall through its own hole. One made with evenly faceted sides—say a square, pentagon, hexagon or octagon— could fall through. Even if it did not kill anyone or damage the works below, there would still be the problem of getting 200lbs of cast steel back up and out, before carefully retrying.
I remember well the train engineer outfit I got for my 5th birthday. In 1958, we did not yet know any astronaut by name, but all still had at least an observer's relation with the physical and mechanical furnishings of our infrastructure. What was encouraged and commonplace has become weird and foreign in a generation.
If you had posed the questions in 1970, most adults would have recognized them as interesting, and a good portion would have gotten it right, I believe. Asking the question today is more likely to elicit a 'whatever' reaction...
I am concerned that, in the main, today's average American adult is completely aloof to the most basic underpinnings of the systems they completely depend on to support their narrow and very specialized pursuits.
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