I really would insist against purely a how-to/if:A-do:B. Most of the current instructions, readmes, forum posts, etc. already have this knowledge of the possible states your bootloader can be in embedded as part of some other explanation; but what is missing is a map or glossary that makes clear that regardless of anyone's word choice, we are always talking about one of these three formats.
I think this confusion is part of why many people will still post in the thread even after reading the instructions because we need some reassurance that we have an accurate mental model of what is going on—that mental model verification/sanity-check is what I think my table provides.