> one is for things that are structurally identitical but semantically distinct where confusing them creates a semantic error, the other is for alternate (usually, more concise) names for an existing type

This is not always true. Sometimes there are cases where you have different type aliases and want to use them interchangeably. Now you have to refactor them to inherit from some general type that didn't exist before. I also could count on one hand the amount of times this has caught a genuine bug even with diligent domain modeling (Which I would argue is overhyped).