No nerves touched, just enjoying a little debate. Can't argue too much with what you've said.
My opinion on the matter is that the ownership consortium within the NHL is treating the league as a whole like a company. They're trying to maximize profits and exposure to their best of their abilities. My personal opinion is that, for the most part, the relocation efforts we saw in the mid-90s were the last realistic round of relocation we're going to see for a very long time, and if it does happen again, it'll be with teams you might not necessarily consider right now. Moving Quebec to Denver and Hartford to Raleigh was less about finding regions that worked, and more about expanding the footprint of the league as a whole. With both, there were already nearby established Original 6 franchises (Montreal and Boston) that the league believed would easily absorb the fans of the departing teams, and largely, this has been proven correct. By moving the franchises to areas that were not established, they added to the league footprint in both area as well as TV viewership, filling regional gaps the league deemed to be important. Atlanta is a massive exception here, but, as you said, that situation was different because of how toxic that environment became behind the scenes.
Going forward, the only kinds of franchises that I could see moving are ones that exist in areas saturated by another, larger franchises, and the ones that stick out the most are the Isles, Devils, and Ducks, where the league may deem them expendable in lieu of the larger local teams (Rangers, Kings). Unfortunately, and as you said, this will always be the biggest sticking point, the league isn't interested at all in moving championship banners to regions that didn't win them, and all 3 of them would be impacted with that predicament. And even if those franchises did move, they would be to areas that would be filling a regional gap in the overall footprint to expand regional broadcasting rights to get larger TV/streaming contracts.