Orthographic conservatism: good and bad news

For cultural reasons, as well as the fact (that writing is learned later than
speech, written language is generally more conservative than spoken. As we
know (especially we English speakers), orthographies can remain un-
changed for centuries, getting further and further away from the phonic
substance they purport to represent. The lag between phonological and
orthographic change is a commonplace. Sound changes (if they are
recorded at all) typically first appear in the record as minor and variable
deviations from earlier norms, and the usual working assumption is that the
first occurrence of an innovative spelling indicates a long period of pre-
ceding change […]
The previous discussions must of course be taken with numerous caveats
Perhaps the most important is that the closer in time a Roman-based
orthography (say) is to its Latin source, the more likely its general norms
are to reflect something like Latin ones. And conversely, the stronger the
evidence for conventionalization and fixation of a tradition over a long
period (during which we may expect considerable change), the less reliable
such norms will be. […]
This seems to imply curiously, that for interpreting spelling, it may be
that the older a text is, the easier it is. On the one hand this could be a
methodological copout (it's easier to interpret Old Icelandic as if it were
Latin than Modem Icelandic); on the other, where there is good descriptive
phonetic evidence […] it's often relatively easy to establish the point of 'deflection’
from the older norm type. But in the absence of metalinguistic commentary
it seems safe (or often the only way) to assume a kind of Latin-based (or
Greek- or Old Church Slavonic-based for other languages) approach, i.e. to
assume representational conservatism for older texts, at least as a starting
point. (Lass, 1997:58-60 as in Schendel 2001: 89-90)
Schendl, Herbert. 2001. Historical Linguistics Oxford: Oxford University Press.

1. Can you give an example from Spanish that shows written language is more conservative
than spoken language?
2. What do you think is meant with “the older a text is, the easier it is” 3¶ 2nd l.?
3. If PDE became extinct and were only preserved in printed texts (for example, as a result
of a global catastrophe), what difficulties would the reconstruction of its sound system
pose to a historical linguist of, let’s say the twenty-second century?