I don't recall saying no one's opinion held any weight, and neither did Master of Heaven. What I was trying to point out, and what MoH summarized above, is that the Sage can be self-contradictory, and sometimes just plain WRONG. He's only human, for pity's sake. His is a well-informed opinion, but an opinion nonetheless.
My main point was the Corwin the Confused basically was given repeated statemtents to the effect of 'this is the official rule, but there's no reason not to use a house-rule'. He doesn't believe that to be the case, and wishes the sage to give him a definitive answer. My point is (and the sage himself has stated) that unless it's in print, it's plausibly deniable. One merely has to look at the flip-flopping surrounding the Halfling Outrider BAB, mage armor with a shield or the properties of the Shield spell to see this to be the case.
If CtC thinks that a Sage reply will help him win an argument with his players (and that seems to be the root of this), so be it. But it sounds more like CtC wants the ruling to be made official, so he can enforce it in his game, because he's having problems getting his players to accept it as a house-rule. While I sympathize, that's not a valid reason to change the core rules, IMHO.