White Mountain Wilderness policy is to not paint blazes, in one case someone had blazed the Rocky Branch trail past the Wilderness boundary and the FS painted over the blue blazes with dark brown. I do believe wooden arrows at major trail deviations like indistinct river crossings are acceptable as well as signage at junctions. This in combination with limited brushing can be a real issue. Madison Gulf Trail has that problem on occasion, lots of steam crossings many at an angle to the flow versus perpendicular. Luckily folks will set up small cairns at these spots. My guess is cairns are tolerated at best by the FS. Its more of an annoyance during the day but at night it could be the difference between a late night walkout and a rescue call. (BTW cell coverage at the base of GG was slim to none several years ago although I am unsure if that has changed in recent years).
As far as I remember even the AT through the Great Gulf is not blazed (barring older faded blazes). There is a stretch east of the bridge where the entire area is trampled by folks trying to find the trail. The above treeline area on the Presidential Ridge is mostly marked with the older enamel lead containing zinc chromate based gloss yellow with very little white as white does not show up on rocks and the newer latex based paints used do not last very long in bright sun and extreme conditions. The older paint had some toxic components that killed off underlying growth from the rocks, on occasion I see bright blaze sized spots of bright white rock surrounded by growth on rocks which I attribute to former blazes that have long since eroded off. As for the rest of the AT, NPS standards typically apply although I agree that some sections are blatantly over blazed. NF rules used to be only one blaze should be visible heading in one direction at any given time unless its a confirmation blaze after a sharp deviation (which would apply the GG intersection if not in a Wilderness area). There is or was a trail club option that could be selected over the standard double blaze which is a vertical lower blaze with a tilted standard sized blaze tilted slightly in the direction of the turn.
Arguably no blazes are needed by "follow the beep" hikers intent on their technology but in this case there still is weak point of the clueless operator.
and my original At a minimum he would arrived at the summit after the Autoroad was closed and would have paid the overtime rate for someone to go out and drive him down. 
