The reality here - among those of us who've been playing this game for a long time - is that a cigar is NOT always just a cigar.
No rules question can be asked in isolation, since answers have a way of becoming codified as rules. Things that are being done that might be inconsistent with other things that are being done MUST be challenged, to clarify which thing is right. There is no such thing in this game as a little allowance that doesn't have some ripple effect on something else, and those ripples get amplified over time.
I'm confident that people think it's messed up for someone (me, more than likely) to take a simple question about looping lines and turn it into a discussion about what defines an "official option" but if we don't pay attention and learn from past mistakes, they'll happen to IT, too. Or again.
K