I highly doubt thay if their roles were reversed and Trump was using the system to convert elected Cruz delegates to Trump ones, that you’d be saying, it’s in the rulebook and Trump just plays it better. No, you’d say Trump is being a sleazy con man bc you support Cruz.
People can say Cruz is just playing the game better, but I don’t think the people’s choices for delegates should be a back room game for only those with the elite on their side. The voters voted for Trump delegates, not Cruz delegates who just have to vote for Trump by law on the first ballot...corruption at its finest.
Simple math says the delegates have to change their “bound” vote on the second ballot if there is no majority winner or the convention is deadlocked.
Majority winner, not plurality, has been the longstanding traditional rule, both in the electoral college and the conventions. The rules have been changed over the years to bring more popular vote into it, and “bind” the delegates on the first ballot (some states go further than first). But at least three states don’t bind their delegates at all.
The delegates are not all elite. They’re almost certainly very politically active Republicans, but they’re far less elite than even House members, and anyone can run for that position.
There are very few rules or laws saying that a candidate cannot do everything to persuade a candidate, short of outright bribery.
If the primary results are inconclusive, with no one getting 50% of the popular vote, than the delegates voting at the convention is as good a way to resolve it as anybody. Just as Dewhurst lost to Cruz in a run-off after Dewhurst was the top vote-getter with 46% of the vote, until you hold a new vote, you don’t know if over 50% of the people wanted someone other than the plurality winner. And going with 50% + 1 is always more democratic than going with less than that.