I never denied you couldn't officially declare anything to be as you wish it to be. . .if fact I asked up above if you were making an official declaration in your official voice to make the rule conform to your interpretation, and you said no. . .
No, that wasn't what you asked. You asked if I was
changing the rules in an official declaration.
Unless you're making an official change to the rules in your official voice?
To be perfectly clear -- the official interpretation did not and
does not change the rules. The RMC Team changed the rules, and ICE accepted those changes -- all before the RMC books were printed.
The official interpretation only attempts to more clearly explain the rules as they are written in the RMC books (because the language was not as clear as originally thought). The official interpretation was and is based solely on the wording of ALL the rules invovled, and it does take the stat bonus option into consideration in making the interpretation.
Now, granted, perhaps that was not the manner in which the RMC Team intended to change the rules. But, it was also not something that was discussed in detail either, so it is also quite possible that both sides (RMC Team and ICE) were seeing different things in those changes and thinking the other side saw the same thing.
As for "scary"....
The way the old ICE did SLA, with "any number of lists" plus stats, etc.. -- yes, that is scary.
The way the current SLA is written - not really scary. The change is actually a minor one overall since the official interpretation only allows for 2 lists (and ONLY 2 lists) to be
attempted to be learned in a single level, and that is ONLY if the first list was learned successfully.
Here is some examples showing how the official interpretation works.
Situation: Cormac is playing a Magicain and has 40 DPs and just made 2nd Level.
Example 1: Cormac buys 5 ranks in Fire Law (first list this level). He successfully rolls his SLA and learns that portion. He may now attempt to learn a second portion. There are only 3 possible outcomes
1-- He succeeds and he is done buy spells for the level.
2 -- He fails and then decides to buy 15 more ranks to make sure he learns it. If he cannot buy all 15, then he cannot buy any.
3 -- He fails and decides to wait until next level to try again to learn that portion.
Example 2: Cormac buys 5 ranks in Fire Law (first list this level). He fails his SLA roll. That leaves him with only 3 choices.
1 -- Buy enough ranks to give him 20 and allow him to still learn the list, then begin his attempt to learn a second list portion.
2 -- Abandon those ranks (and the DP spent on them) and begin trying to learn a second list.
3 -- Wait until the next level, and do not attempt to learn a second list this level.
The only difference that I can see between the official interpretation and your interpretation is that you don't want to allow a second list to even be possible UNLESS the character spends at least 20 DP (if pure or hybrid) on the first list. Sorry, but that is not how the RMC rules read.