Again, the above presupposes intentional design, or judgement that emergent behavior nonetheless keeps gameplay in balance..
What's more, changing a rule can make a game fundamentally different experience that appeals to a new audience. Simple rules (no sniper in counter strike for example) lead to a different game that a subset of the addressable audience finds more enjoyable.
I'll finish with taking a quibble with the statement that "winning is not meant to be equally divided among players." That is true to a degree, but it also should not be overly concentrated among just a few. It is not fun to be consistently dominated and a game where a feeling of success or enjoyment is only accessible to a select few is unlikely to attract much of an audience.
I guess my viewpoint assumes that gameplay is legitimately & deliberately balanced. I suppose this is much harder in videogames with game characters having different skill sets. It's much harder to evaluate whether or not there is balance between them than, say, Monopoly: Everyone starts the same there-- the dog isn't any better off than the thimble. (Though I usually play as the dog, and pretend the thimble is a fire hydrant as I pass it by & do what dogs do... I may not be very mature for my age. It makes my kids laugh though)
In the long term, someone will exploit that brokenness. The key to a functioning society is repairing those broken places imo.
At a deeper level, that people won't "exploit the brokenness for their own gain" is key to a functioning society. Just as the promise of laying out rules in detail (expert systems) failed to capture the complexity required to get high-functioning AI, societies can not function by formal rules (laws and regulations) alone. There are sorts of complexities about norms, mores, and moral codes that are important to keep societies and organizations running. What is expected behavior when everyone is queued up to buy tickets at an event, but there is no formal sign saying "please queue here"? I mean you could audiciously walk up, stand next to the person in front of the line, and then walk up to the windows when they say "next please" and not be breaking any written rule, but everyone sure would be angry, and if everyone did it you'd have near total anarachy where the pushiest or strongest always got to the front of the line first.
One of the biggest problems with internet scale is that its pretty easy to start running into individuals who ARE ok with exploiting the rules, or just ignoring them. This can be because they are from societies with different norms than the one they are encountering online, or just because they are in the small minority of people who just don't care. This effect is aided and abetted by the relative anonymity online. If you cut in line, people who you can see and here are going to yell at you right now. Break the social norm (or actual policy) of not paying for reviews and you'll most likely just get a strongly worded letter and possible ban on selling (which is easy enough to get around).
In short though, not exploiting a broken rule or system just because its broken isn't silly. Its the a huge part of having a functioning society.