@Scottzar, notice how Endaire is indeed talking about newbee GM's, and for him, as an experienced min/maxer, 'clever solutions', indeed, as you mentioned, in a thread on the min/max boards. That raises the question with me if everybody was on the same level when those games started, and wether this newbee GM's are familiair with the OP culture you talk about.
In my experience, newbee GM's don't have a clue about high optimization and to the different kind of play that leads to. So they don't have an oportunity to set a ceiling and have extreme difficulties in running a game if people like us use 'standard' optimization tricks.
If you use high op with an inexperienced DM, high chance you're breaking the game, even when you stay within RAW. And since the game is meant to be fun for a group of friends, my point is that 'RAW' is irrelevant if that leads to frustration, and that it's wise to have a good talk in advance about what kind of game you want, what each other knowledge and expectations are. Especially as an experienced min/maxer, you have imo a responsability towards the game balance, since you understand it far better then a newbee GM.