[dragonwriter]

> "bury" is pronounced to rhyme with "merry" in probably every accent of English that's ever been

I've definitely heard speakers for whom "bury" rhymes with "furry", and that's without the "Merry–Murray merger" (i.e., the same person would pronounce "berry" to rhyme with "merry" and quite distinctly from "bury".)

> You could just fix 100 words like "bury" and "could" and "are" whose spellings are either wrong or etymological but don't reflect extant variants, and the spelling would be reformed, children's lives would be improved, and it wouldn't be a problem from any perspective of accent variation or etymology or anything.

In many cases it would take existing homophones and turn them into additional meanings of the same spelling, which would actually reduce clarity and comprehensibility of written text.