Like I said, it's not always that simple. When it's not, something less than 100% transparency allows one to look at the given particulars of a case and determine whether or not someone is simply trying to evade the spirit of a rule or not. It gives enforcement actors a little lee-way that they wouldn't otherwise have.
One of the worst things about engineers in general and HN specifically is we all pretend that law is executed like code, in a vacuum, idempotently based on the inputs. That's was, is, and will never be the case.
Abuse can be exposed and punished, and very often is.
