[quote=@Bork Lazer]
Honestly, most of the writing advice here people post here are either people misconstruing what are meant to be guidelines towards writing and instead, taking them to heart in a draconian manner. None of the rules mentioned here are necessarily wrong, per se, barring a few minor wishy-washy platitudes. When mishandled improperly or misinterpreted, that's when the problems begin. 
[/quote]

That's the thing, though. They [i]are[/i] often misinterpreted and used in a draconian manner.

I agree that the spirit of the message isn't wrong, but I also can't deny that the way I've seen these sentiments echoed and used have been in exactly the way described right here in this thread. Quite simply put, these rules get told in their short and easy to grasp on a surface level forms. The problem, then, is that people who don't understand the deeper meaning to them take them too far. Those people, then, tell this advice further without knowing how to apply it themselves.

Personally, because of stuff like this, I'd be extremely careful with these "guidelines" because people properly fail to explain them. You should always take the TED talk route with stuff like this, where these rules are just a title to a much longer explanation. They often aren't, though, and that's what makes it bad advice.