It only seems like a technicality if you don't know the tortured history of this case: https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...

The "public's right of access" to the beach is not at issue in this case. (See pp. 429-430 of the above.) Private ownership of the land in question dates back to before California was a state. When the Mexican-American war ended, the United States entered into the Treat of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which among other things promised the protection of private property rights that had been granted by the Spanish and Mexican governments in the land that was being ceded to the United States. The California Lands Act of 1851 set up proceedings wherein Mexican and Spanish land titles were turned into U.S. federal patents (land titles).

More than a century later, California added Article X, sec. 4 to its constitution, which declared a public easement over tidal lands to be held for the benefit of the public. In a series of cases, the Supreme Court held that the federal Treaty obligation to protect the scope of private property rights that had been granted by the Spanish and Mexican governments could not be impaired by California's later assertion of a sovereign right of the public to access tidal waters: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=122714134443780...

Because California had not asserted any public easement in the proceedings under the 1851 act, Khosla's beach is not subject to the general right of the public to access beaches. (See pp. 430 of the above.)

This whole litigation is therefore about a different issue entirely: the public dedication doctrine, which says that private land can become subject to a public easement if "dedicated" to public use. That's where the whole "private parking" thing comes in. Martin's beach was operated as a beach accessible to the public, but where a fee was charged for access. That doesn't count as dedication to the public.

So this case is really about two things that aren't technicalities at all: (1) the relatively small number of California property titles granted by the Mexican and Spanish governments are protected under Treaty against later State assertions of authority; and (2) the difference between dedicating private property to public use, and selling access to property to members of the public.

More generally, technicalities matter. Anglo legal systems like ours are not only about governing society, but protecting individuals and their property from the government. That's why the Magna Carta is a long list of things the King can't do, many of which are the foundation for our Bill of Rights. Protections of private property from seizure by the government for "public purposes" is right there in the Constitution, in the Takings Clause. The United States has thus been fastidious in protecting private property rights inherited from England, Spain, France, etc.

This is also about not changing the rules after the fact. There's lots of fair ways to structure a society. But it undermines notions of rule of law for the government to change the terms of the bargain after-the-fact. A state could be entirely justified in declaring that all oil fields in the state belongs to the state to lease for the benefit of the public. But the state should not be able to sell oil fields to private parties, and then come back later and declare that "in the public interest" the state should get half of all the oil production.

Many governmental abuses result from ignoring "technicalities" in favor of some vaguely-defined (and usually opportunistic) view of the "public's right[s]." The government gives out a property right, because it doesn't have the capital to develop the property itself, and then tries to get more than it bargained for once someone has taken the time to develop that property. One of the things that has made America so successful is that we don't do that. (And instances where we have done that, such as with treaty obligations to Native Americans, are rightfully a source of national shame.)