i can answer that exactly--
WITH A GRAVALONE WHEEL you can never get the lever long enough
every time you lengthen the lever (the rim from the center) you increase the circumferential load
the longer the radius the longer the circumference
which makes everything harder to reset
and the bigger the gravity bang from the trebuchet the more of a bitch it is to lift and reset again
yes you can lift a four pound weight with a one pound weight with a long enough lever
and gears are compound levers and pulleys are linear levers and wheels are circular levers and pumps are liquid levers
and THAT's what drives everyone crazy frying their brains trying to get the wheel to spin from gravity alone
thinking of THAT
so that's the reason, if not the excuse, for it
but the more you leverage yourself--the more you have to reset or lift or unwind or rewind or flip or whatever
levers are magic hammers and when that's all you got everything starts looking like a magic nail
gravity-alone flibbertiggibit widget flippers do not and can not and never will work
period
you have to add something
otherwise you are just creating more and more complicated ways to fight gravity in order to use it
or use it to fight it
deeper and deeper layers of hell for the self damned widget flipper maker to crawl down into
oh nobly born go towards the light
use it to fight it?
fight it to use it?
lift it to drop it?
drop it to lift it?--in which order?
spin it to sparkle it?
how about kick it so it can bite me, siblings
just kick it regardless--give up the grimey gravalone
hypnotized by a shiny spinning object
for shame
all alone grovelling in the gravel before the graven gravalone--
ohhh no
are we not men?
take no thought for the order of your going from this error
for God's sake just go
leave it-look elsewhere
oh it IS there-(a gravity engine is possible--imho)
just not THERE
(those diagrams weren't meant to be read at face value, as 'blueprints')