You....realize that doesn't actually address his point. Sam is smart guy, but he's still just guy trying to make sense of GWs crappy, unclear, imprecise and sometimes even contradictory rules.
Look my point, and I guess the other Matt's too, is that sometimes if follow GWs dumbe, untechnical rules in a technical way, you actually wind up with a ruling that is pretty clearly the opposite of what they intended. And if you choose to do it the RAW way, you're actually just furthering the dumbness.
Everyone used to accept the INAT FAQ as gospel, and with good reason, I think. (unfortunately the main organizer of that has seemed to have lost interest in doing it) And the INAT FAQ would occasionally rule in favor of RAI, rather than RAW. Or more likely, ust use RAI when RAW was unclear. Not like a tons of times, but occasionally, when necessary. In fact, I even think that may be where our common use of the abbreviation came from.