Interesting stuff.
The thing about material gain is it is lasting, where as an advantage in position can quickly dissolve and needs to be used before it vanishes.
The most inexperienced beginner can count his material, but even top class players misjudge positions.
How do you know that in the first position black actually has the advantage? Did you have a computer play it a few hundred times against itself, to see who wins most?
The other positions seem tactical to me. Material does not mean anything in a tactical situation; I can be a Queen up, but if it is not my turn and the opponent forks me, it is bye-bye Queen... Like any strategic evaluation term, material only means something in quiet positions.
From Chess programs it is well known that there are (apart from material) evaluation terms that can run up to well over a Pawn. King safety is defnitely one of those. Passed Pawns are another. An isolated passer on the 7th rank is worth nearly 3 Pawns, on the 6th nearly 2. Protected passers are worth more, connected passers still more. It is well known that 2 connected 6th-rank passers beat a Rook.
Material is also not purely additive. Seven Knights beat three Queens quite easily, which cannot be explained by addition of any plausible value for the individual pieces.
Material doesn't really matter, here is one of my games on crazyhouse:
As you can see, black was about 20 pawns ahead, but I still checkmated, checkmate is the real aim of chess, if you have a situation where you could have a mate in 1, or a queen, most under 1300 would take the queen, not checkmate.
P.S: See the game here: https://www.chess.com/live#g=2704461733
When playing chess, two of the most important considerations to have are position and material. With that fact in mind, it is important to consider BOTH of these fundmental ideas of chess, just not one or the other. Iniatative must be considered! With that in mind, let us first look of the general rule of point count.
Pawn = Pawn
Knight = 3 Pawns
Bishop = 3 Pawns
Rook = 5 pawns
Queen = 9 pawns
(The King of course is priceless)
Although point count certainly has its advantages, the position is by no means written in stone by who has more material! Let us consider example 1 as the first nail in the grave of point count!