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I agree pretty much across the board with you except with C1-C2. Intent matters, and since we can't read minds all we have to judge on is the actions taken.
B1-B2 is not cancel culture because the university has plausible denial that their motivation is protecting their reputation from a smear campaign rather than shutting the speech of the grad student. That said, it's a cowardly decision, and it being taken over and over again rather than defending their employees's right to their opinions is what gives cancel culture its power, so it should still be opposed by anti-cancel culture.
B3-B5 again intent matters but we can only tell by the actions taken. Journalists are pretty transparent thankfully. It's really obvious when a journalist's writing is oriented towards encouraging people to take action to get someone fired or really genuinely informing them.
For C1, I don't think Scott's friends engaged in cancel culture because of the target of the letter. Going only by the detail in this article (I didn't read the whole drama when it happened): "Some of my friends made an open letter/petition asking them not to do this". I haven't read the whole letter, but unless it ended with an appeal to other readers to unsubscribe from the NYT if they didn't comply with their demands (it might have, though I would assume that's a relevant detail Scott would have included in this post), then they deserve the benefit of the doubt that their actions were to persuade the NYT and not threaten them.
For C2, I don't think Scott telling us about it is cancel culture. Though reading it has lowered my already low opinion of The Atlantic, I think that wasn't Scott's goal. I think he mostly wanted to show that when someone's widely stated opinion feels like a personal attack against you it's difficult to have detachment and to not go on crusade against them.
*EDIT:
Another aspect I think is important to highlight is intent to what. I would define it as intent to cause damage to someone's associations (personal or professional) for speech unrelated to those associations. For instance, a hardware store employee's political opinions are unrelated to their job, so trying to get them fired for their opinion is cancel culture. A politician's political opinions are related to their job so campaigning against them is not cancel culture. There are more complex and murky cases.
a) Trying to get fired a programmer at a games studio having expressed an opinion on a forum a year ago that they believe there should never be gay people (or straight white men) in games is cancel culture because it's not something that's related to their job.
b) Trying to get fired a WRITER/DESIGNER at a games studio having expressed an opinion on a forum a year ago that they believe there should never be gay people (or straight white men) in games is... a tough call, dependant on how much they let their personal opinion drive their professional conduct. In general I believe people should be given the benefit of the doubt, but I wouldn't begrudge people keeping an eye on someone like that.
c) Trying to get people to boycott games from a studio because they wrote a blog post on their website saying that they believe there should never be gay people (or straight white men) in games is not cancel culture.
By that aspect, Scott's friends writing to the NYT and Scott writing about The Atlantic is not cancel culture because the articles that sparked a reaction IS their job. If they had written those articles on their personal blogs, it would have been a tough call, dependant on how much they let their personal opinion drive their professional conduct. For a straight up journalist writing factual stories (if that still exists), then I would give them the benefit of the doubt, but for an opinion columnist, then the lack of distinction between their opinion and their job is pretty much the point of their job, so...
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