? Thats exactly how it worked what are you on about.
Haki is means will power, so when he transfers his will to his sword its pretty obvious whats going on, what else can it be that zoro with a sword has sliced at leaves but its not been cut as opposed to a barrier on his sword. Are you suggesting his sword turned blunt ? it went through the leaves what ?
With luffy its clear what happens,
Hes about to attack clealry sees the future of what happens if he follows through with the attack and sees his arms chopped off and completely changes what he was going to do, he even fully comprehends that he was gonna lose his arms for sure, its not even about sensing. And one thing we got hammered into us with katakuri is the usuage of fs in conjuction with how calm you are. Which mihawk clearly points out.
Now on to the zoro part.
and here is the stephen paul translation of this scene
Excerpt: Zoro: {I dodged... this rock?! ...no. I KNEW... I KNEW the place where it wouldn't fall... My sword... Is under the rock there. I KNOW it...!!!}
During all this whole scene zoro is extremely serene and calm. Now fs you clearly see a picture about whats about to happen
like kata showed many times in wci for example
He has a clear picture of what happens.
(which as luffy showed vs mihawk and sanji in the next scene of this moment is subject to change depending on the actions taken)
Now zoro clearly says he doesnt dodge or sense anything. And as i stated earlier he was extremely calm, He not only knew where the rocks would and wouldnt fall he also knew exactly which rock his sword was under. This clealry points to like above with luffy and kata he had the scene play to him so he knew exactly what was gonna happen.
Its not sketchy at all it actually fits pretty well, do i believe oda had all the ins and outs of haki back then no not at all.
Its not an over complication at all.
At this point in the manga we have the explanations for acoa from hyou and fs from kata, both moments of zoro fit into both sections and follow the same guidelines as explained for each ability.