Rule independence in the openings

It's time to start studying openings again. Not to the exclusion of all else, not even more than all else. After three weeks of not studying openings at all, after focusing on general "rules" for opening play, I have gotten worse in the openings. And I am taking more time to make my moves. What a useful combination!

John Watson, in Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy talks about how the GMs constantly break the classical "rules" of chess when the situation demands it. E.g., it is sometimes the best move is to put a knight on the edge, to move a piece twice in the opening, or to give up the right to castle. He describes this situation-responsive play as 'rule independence.' And that's what intelligent chess is: it is the formation of a plan based on an evaluation of the concrete position in front of you. Paraphrasing Patrick, the rules (and patterns) merely suggest plans, but concrete analysis tells you what the best move is, what plan should be followed.

So, why study openings, why not just analyze the concrete position in front of you in the opening, using the rules as mere useful suggestions? I can think of lots of reasons. The following are in order of importance:
1) I simply enjoy studying the openings. Why deprive myself of that? Rule-independent doesn't mean I can't study them on my own time, that I need to figure everything out for myself OTB.
2) To save time in games.
3) Avoid annoying traps. While such situations are really just tactical, that doesn't mean I'll see them before they are sprung on me!
4) I have improved at chess, and I am starting to see more varied and hard-to-handle openings. I want to know about them.
5) The opening is the only position that occurs in every game. Study it well, young grasshopper.

My plan: I am not going to study deep, but broad, following Heisman's approach in this excellent article. It is similar to Sancho's sketch pad approach. Note, J'adoube has a discussion of these general issues here, written in his usual understated style.

As for specifics, I'm overhauling my repertoire in a couple of key places. I'm giving up the Bishop's opening for the Ruy Lopez. As black I'll play the Giuoco instead of the two-knights' defense. I don't like the two-knights. The proper response to the Fried-Liver attack is basically to give away a pawn and destroy your pawn structure. While the Giuoco has a boring reputation because of its symmetry, as black I just want to make it to the middlegame with a reasonable position. The two knights doesn't let me do that. Also, Watson's new book has good coverage of the Giuoco. This will be a good opportunity to use his book. (Tak: I don't want to play the Traxler :)).

This is fun. Note this is partly inspired by my tournament games (and this weekend I went 0/3, which I don't even want to talk about right now).