[Q.G.]

As the distance in question increases, the area decreases proportionately (I THOUGHT cube of distance relative to the inverse cube of the area - but, I don't know - possibly my memory cells are getting rusty).

We are indeed talking areas, not volumes, so it is the square, not cube.

The amount of light given off for each unit of area remains the same. An example: If a measurement limited to a one degree circular area of a gray card from one cm indicates an EV of 10, increasing the distance to the card to 100 meters and limiting the measured area to the same area as before will also indicate 10EV.

[...]
Incident metering measures the light falling on the subject - the distance to the CAMERA has no effect. [...]

The question is: why?
Light has to travel from the subject to the camera to be captured. And along the way, why would it not behave in accordance to the inverse square law?

It does.