To give some context, to my question, I'd like to say that I'm aware of the discussions around the differences and continuity between Fate Accelerated Edition and Fate Core, both on this site and elsewhere (“How do FATE Core and FAE differ in purpose?”, “Clark Valentine on FAE ‘vs’ Core”, “Thread: FATE Core vs. FATE Accelerated”, “Fate Core & Accelerated Editions”).
However, I have noticed what seems to me to be a different default difficulty for passive opposition in the FAE and Fate Core books (quoting here from the SRDs):
Fate Core:
Average is called Average for a reason — if nothing about the opposition sticks out, then the difficulty doesn’t need more than a +1.
FAE:
If the task isn’t very tough at all, give it a Mediocre (+0) — or just tell the player they succeed without a roll.
Now I know that "[not] more than a +1" includes +0, but I think this rule tends to be read as, "+1 is the default", as I have seen for example this Reddit post:
The "default" difficulty is Average (+1).
My question: Have I understood correctly, that the rules intend for there to be a different default difficulty set for FAE and Fate Core? If so, what might the motivation for this be?
My own thoughts on this question: I'm wondering if it's just part of the general streamlined nature of FAE, or if FAE is supposed to be a little bit more generous on the PCs. In my limited experience of playing Fudge and Fate, +1 can be quite a big deal. Or is the intention of the two rules very similar (0 vs <=1), but the latter tends to get interpreted as +1 being the default?