I mean, really, why would it be encrypted?

[RenegadeHealer]

One problem is the rather liberal use of the word 'cipher' and 'encryption'.

I can see your point about the word cipher being problematic in the field of VMS studies, and a word best discouraged from here forward. It's not only imprecise, it's arguably an anachronism. It brings into to the picture a whole set of cultural baggage from centuries later, which has the potential to lead us further from the VMS's true source and intended message.

By the same token, I see cipher as a problematic description of Giovanni Fontana's symbolic languages too, and not necessarily helpful to retroactively classify them this way.