That being said I remember in late high school feeling pretty frustrated because I had a good grip on the rules by now and wanted to try adding some zest to my writing.

But zest is difficult to grade, my teachers were not paid well enough to deal with ambiguity and to be honest most of them didn't strike me as particularly imaginative in the first place.

Yea, it's just that pedants deep down believe that good grammar is good writing; they don't understand the difference. Therefore, they're going to struggle to recognize good writing, and be incapable of producing it.

I was going to ask if that went for lawyers as well, But then I realized it was obvious.

Bullshit. If ignorance of the rules is no excuse to avoid punishment, then knowledge of them cannot be either, because you should've known better.

This whole charade is merely a loophole to allow people to avoid saying "wow, this writer is really hot, therefore they are allowed to break the rules whenever they want to."