I mean it was at least possible, and (while fantasizing about hypothetical legal systems) would be desirable if laws could be updated with new information rather than reinterpreted through layers of precedent.

Is that desirable? To me, the existing model embodies a much-valued computer science concept: lazy processing. That allows you to avoid resolving hypotheticals that never actually come up, and when you're forced to resolve a question of law, it lets you do so based on concrete application of the law instead of a mere hypothetical.

On the other hand, maybe a less charitable analogy would be prototyping in a dynamic language. Thinking through edge cases only when running on some input causes an exception to be thrown.

While lazy evaluation is desirable, I do think our present legal system evaluates things too lazily. I'd gladly trade some of the current lazy evaluation for greater up-front certainty of outcome.

Relying extensively on the courts to lazily evaluate ambiguous laws biases outcomes toward those who have capital. Since I do not belong to the capital class, I would prefer less ambiguous laws.