Ubiq, that’s a very nice vort – i had a different explanation of why beis shammai go by parei hachag (pashtus there’s no kasha because they’re not deriving or even necessarily comparing n”ch to sukkos, they’re answering the taanah of beis hilel that we usually say maalin bakodesh…)
Chazal say that the number of parim decreased because it was being machchish the koach of the Umos haolam(while at the same time giving them chius), and pn chanukah, the shem mishmuel explains that we were machchish the koach of the yavanim…there were no new philosophers after the neis, he says, and we also used the nitzutz of kedushah that was “yaft elokim leyefes”, and used it for a mitzvah that is personified by “mehadrin min hamehadrin”