I agree The Merry Wives doesn't have this kind of cognitive dissonance; I'd say it has its own less problematic brand of ambiguity. But if you don't find anything dissonant about Falstaff, Mistress Quickly, Shallow, Bardolph, Nym and Pistol all drifting two centuries from their historical moorings, then I don't think I'm going to be able to persuade you. This post is more of a tangent from that debate than a contribution to it.