I have to say I really like OP's spin on it. It's fridge brilliance if ZUN indeed intended that, but it's hard to say for sure.
Incidentally, I've had some more about Touhou 12. The game's themes are basically Buddhism, unidentified flying objects, and retro games. As distinct as those three might seem, they have some interesting connections. Starting from the most tangential one, retro game references in UFO could be seen as being about reincarnation, which is a core Buddhist concept.
Getting to the clever details, the incident is about a flying ship in the sky, right? And its purpose turns out to be fetching Byakuren. Is there any particular reason why ZUN chose a nautical design for the vessel, though?
This type of helm is a symbol of the eightfold path, Buddha's described way to enlightenment. Dharma is the practice of living your life through the eightfold path:
O Vakkali, whoever sees the Dharma, sees me.
In UFO, once you have control of the ship, you get to see the enlightened person.
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Also, research into characters led me to some serious ZUN brilliance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigisan-engi is the story UFO is most heavily based on. Myoren/"Myouren Hijiri" was an actual Buddhist monk living in the Heian period, and in UFO's lore, Byakuren is his sister to which he taught magic. Myoren was born in the Shinano Province, where ZUN himself lives.
In Shigisan-engi, there's an unnamed Buddhist priestess who is the sister of Myoren. As Myoren has gone off to live a full monk life, she wants to reunite with him. One day, she has a dream in which a Buddha statue shows her a purple cloud at a nearby mountain. She travels to the mountain, finds Myoren, and they live together.
Understanding this reference highlights the relationship between Hijiris, and you'd think it's enough to tie Unzan into the story too, but that's not all. According to another story, Ichiren Nyuudou was the name of a tsukumogami born of Buddhist prayer beads. That explains Ichirin's background, but it just so happens that "nyuudou" also means a cumulonimbus cloud in Japanese.
So it's genuinely insightful of ZUN to tie these two stories together by giving Ichirin a purple nyuudou cloud companion. Also, by manner of foreshadowing, you could say it links the former umbrella Kogasa's appearance to tsukumogami nature of Ichirin/Unzan - after all, an umbrella offers shade from the rain of a cumulonimbus cloud.
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Mount Shigi, the setting of Shigisan-engi, further leads to Ten Desires connections. I'll just leave this Wiki quote here, notice any familiar things?
One of the legends of Mt. Shigi tells of Prince Shotoku asking for victory from the gods over his opponents. Prince Shotoku was a descendant of the Soga family, who had loyalty to Buddhism. During the Year of the Tiger, Prince Shotoku was promoting Buddhism, and was in conflict with the Mononobe family.[2] While at Mt. Shigi, Prince Shotoku prayed for a victory over Mononobe no Moriya. Bishamonten, the Buddhist deity of war, then visited him during the Hour of the Tiger, on the Day of the Tiger. Bishamonten then lead Prince Shotoku to victory in the Battle of Shigisen. Prince Shotoku then built a shrine in his honor.[3]
These sort of things are why I believe UFO has the top characters and lore of the Touhou games so far.