Since the days of OD&D (the three slim booklets, ca 1974), I've always been in groups that "rolled their own" (RAW was the start point, but NOT where the gaming began -- house rules were the rule throughout). And if a house rule said "do this", but logic and rationality (and the world) said, "do this other thing", we, like you, "did the other thing". I always tried to avoid breaking the metarule of "don't bore your players" - and that always seemed to work best.