I totally understand what's going on and it comes down to a difference in semantics.
I do not see an erroneous early shot at a TBR domain before the actual runs starts as "a pick" because no transaction happened and no domain was selected. The company who mistakenly went before the run started can't go again with that link until 5 seconds later, at which time this penalty factor won them a far worse domain. Agreed.
But I still feel that any domain caught within 0 seconds and 5 seconds remains a First Rounder, albeit with quality dropping as you get to the end.
I do get what you're saying from a "TBR link perspective" and you view each link as a pick and if that link goes early, then it's gone for that round. I look at it strictly from the "0 to 5 seconds" and "one pick per link" rules (neither of which have bene broken), and as no domain was selected, these "early birds" instead get pushed to the "back of the bus" but still within the 5 second limit for the first round.
Semantics.