For me as a player, the amount of cognitive load is relative. What’s the outcome or impact of cognitive load? Measuring cognitive load as if it were linear based on number of potential actions, without consideration of individual perception (cognition lives in each person’s head, and their perception of the load may vary), or the impact that has on the behavior of the loaded individual seems to be navel-gazing wankery.

Unless and until you regard the cognitive load as either an enabler or inhibitor of some other action, it can’t be quantified in a useful way.