2) You can't determine from any language that something is definitely not a true threat (or an immediate threat, as you persist on calling it). Language is malleable. My use of the word "malleable" could be a coded reference which means, to those in the know, that you should be hunted down and killed. I mean, it doesn't really sound like it is, but how can you determine that? The answer is that you don't need to. Speech that you "can't determine" isn't a true threat is still protected. It's only when speech rises to the level of being clearly intended to cause fear in the recipient that it might lose its protection. (Which is, incidentally, one of the larger reasons the speech was obviously protected: It wasn't made to the person allegedly being threatened. Comments about a person face a vastly higher bar than comments to a person. If the person who made the woodchipper comment had no reason to think the judge would ever see it, it couldn't have been a true threat.)
In short, the true threats exception is vastly narrower than you seem to think.
"Taken in context, and regarding the expressly conditional nature of the statement and the reaction of the listeners, we do not see how it could be interpreted otherwise."
It is literally right there in the decision, so in fact the conditional language is being considered.
> you can't determine from the specific language people are using that this is definitely not an immediate threat.
That's utterly irrelevant.
How is this utterly irrelevant? it seems to be the substance of the entire legal problem.