But I daresay, that isn't stage rally as we know it.
Again, please describe what a stage rally is. You just keep saying "that's not a rally".
I don't know any west coast rally competitors that participate in these.
I don't know that one can legitimately say "well, none of the people I know go there, so it's not a rally".
I've been to the NORRA rally, multiple times. The HQ hotel has a bunch of racers staying there, pulling their race cars in on open trailers, and working on their stuff last minute in the parking lot. That sounds familiar. At registration, lots of people who don't know exactly where to go or what the schedule is or what time the driver's meeting is. That sounds familiar. At tech, a big line of cars and bikes with everyone getting their suits out. That sounds familiar. At the novice meeting, a lot of people worried about how to do timing math. That sounds familiar. At the start, a published start order list with everyone leaving on a minute interval. That sounds familiar. Road books with tulips and mileages. That sounds familiar. Pulling up to the start, getting your time marked on your time card and the log, and then getting counted down to the top of the minute to start racing. That sounds familiar. At the end of the stage, looking at your time card for the allowed transit time, and figuring out when you're due to check in. That sounds familiar. At the next section, waiting outside the control until it's your time, then pulling in. That sounds familiar. Running multiple stages each day, with transits in between. That sounds familiar. At the end of the day, turning in your time card. That sounds familiar. Overnight, a reseed based on your speed. That sounds familiar. The winner determined by the lowest overall sum of stage times (plus penalties). That sounds familiar. For years they've using the same rally scoring software used by the entire Atlantic Rally Cup, with results being published in exactly the same format. That looks familiar.
If your beef is that trucks run there... are you going to tell Bill Holmes that he isn't rallying? Are you going to tell me, or Mad Mike, that our years running in the SCCA RallyTruck class wasn't rallying? Or is it the rougher desert surface? So then Rally Tennessee and Empire State Performance Rally aren't rallies because they are tarmac and not smooth gravel? Or is it motorcycles, so Dakar isn't a rally?
Are some things different? Sure. The services are more like optional remote services. The check in time calculations sort of have a optional service window built in to them. The stages are way longer. The rally is four days instead of two. Finding parallels to these at rallies that use only cars on only smooth gravel with only short stages would be pretty easy.
So I await your definition of rally. I still don't understand what are the fundamental characteristics of a rally you believe that the NORRA events don't provide.