Bookworm, I don't see how there can be any ambiguity when the CAA, the FAA, TC and ICAO all say that runway heading is the runway QDR. It's set in stone. I may have simplified things by saying "compass direction", but the point is that if the runway QDR is 244 degrees, say, you put your compass or DI or HSI on 244 degrees and fly that as a heading.
As for entertainment value, I did NOT say anything about danger and I do not find anything entertaining in aircraft under my control, or anyone else's, being in a dangerous state. I am perfectly entitled to find it entertaining, however, when an aircraft flying runway heading happens to be tracking 15 degrees or 20 degrees off centreline. "A bit windy" is the sort of comment my colleagues and I will make in that situation. It isn't dangerous when aircraft are taking off into the reciprocal runway's final approach area (clear of obstacles) and at a climb rate which, for everything except the occasional Antonov or IL76 will put them above the reciprocal runway's glidepath. It also isn't dangerous from a departure separation perspective, since everyone is drifting in the same direction, and if aircraft are departing from the same runway they won't be side by side anyway! The wind that actually reduces separation for departures is a nice, healthy headwind.