Mary did take pains to mark where she heard what song, though, which I found helpful.
I'm really starting to think that the ability to hear UNOWH in Heian Alien is purely genetic. People either totally hear it or totally don't. It seriously reminds me of the cilantro thing. Which brings me to:
Want a real speculative analysis for a song in Touhou? I bet few of you realise the similarity between PCB stage 3 and SA stage 4. Those kind of comparisons are like far more closer to "speculate" than picking out little bits of rhythms and instruments that happen to sound "some what similar/close" to song X.
Yes, there are going to be stronger and weaker connections to different ears. If someone doesn't hear something you hear very clearly, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're tone deaf, just as someone hearing something that you don't means they're grasping at straws. Maybe it's because I've been spending too much time in language theory classes, but that's how I'm looking at it, anyway.
Having said that, I'm sure there are people who know music theory who could post the measures from two different Touhou themes for comparison and point to exactly what makes them similar. No one here is (or maybe can) do that. I know I can't, anyway. So we have our ears to go on. And as this thread demonstrates, everyone's ears are different, and that's fine.
