My dear nohat,
I cannot but strongly disagree with you about following the rules. I suppose you're talking about R/T phraseology. You should have a look to the incidents and accidents where "not following the rules" played a major part (nor least in the worst ever air accident. You may well want to visit an open discussion in the News Forum about a certain Delta 777 Crew.
The fact of English not being the mother tongue of everyone (certainly not mine), makes more sense of using EXACTELY the correct phraseology.
Fly safely