Love the emphasis you’re making on how none of the rules are absolute. When they’re perceived that way (rather than as helpful guidance for people with problems letting go of a pretty sentence, say, or who can never finish a short story because they can’t get past the third sentence, which just isn’t perfect), writing can seem so frustratingly limiting rather than the free expression & fun it is. (I have a couple of perfectionist friends who expect their first drafts to be final drafts, and they don’t get far in their stories.) Rules, schmules.