I am not clear about the illusion comment. Are you disagreeing with the down, out, and forward move?
NO
But with the driver being longer, the plane will be flatter, so you'll have to come more from the inside than with a short-iron. Or the 2 dimentional look of it is the clubhead is coming into impact "more from the inside".
Hope this is making more sense to you.
My take is that with the hands in the same place, the longer club resting on the ground will naturally "lie" on a flatter plane.
Your suggestion that we swing on a flatter plane due to the wider stance, is that because the wider stance forces us to swing more around the body=restricts the up-motion??? Or something else? please tell us more.
I was doing ok before we came up with two theories. I am not sure which it either. I do know that I am striking the ball better with every other club, and I know if I can hit reasonable drives, my hc will drop significantly. So I am a bit anxious about the question, but if I get the results I can wait on the experts to decide why the driver swing is flatter.
The wider stance of the longer club is needed because of the increased amount of hip slide that is required to get the right shoulder on plane after the shoulders turn flatter because you are bending over less and thus your shoulders turn flatter on the backswing by default.
Whew!
The real "trick" is to make sure the ball is far enough forward and the head is far enough back at impact.
I have seen golfers on the SQUARED SHOULDER PLANE with the driver who hit it great!