where stroke thickness matters

Sorry, but I've looked at quite a bit of both written and printed Japanese and Chinese, and stroke thickness has nothing to do with comprehensibility, but rather number and position of strokes. The thickness of strokes is more like the serifs on Times Roman. Mere ornamentation. In fact, if you look at the older Chinese characters, which were carved on stone and bronze, they are completely lacking in the thickness and little serif like doodads.