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@EdwardZ
Of course "reach" (as defined by Empfield) takes seat-tube angle into account since with a fixed top-tube as one increases the angle one shifts the orthogonal projection of the BB onto the top-tube backwards. With a constant stem length and saddle set-back as one increases the seat-tube angle-- which demands that the saddle be pushed back on the rails to keep the same constant set-back--- the distance to handlebars increases. The "Empfield reach" is, in this light, a good proxy for the personal reach as defined as the distance from saddle to handlebar: more "reach" generally means, assuming a constant saddle setback, more reach to the handlebars. The point of the Empfield "reach" was to define a proxy reach that could be measured on each frame.
The counter factor is the observation that as one steepens the seat-tube angle one also tends to shorten the stem, reducing the reach which allows one to look at the top-tube length as a parameter for comparison.