Anyone who has ever houseruled is guilty of "ignor[ing] them or ma[king] up your own." It's about what the rules are meant to represent and what you are trying to do with them. I would argue, because the rules evolved from wargaming, that the original intent of the rules were to simulate reality, and that they rules grew and changed to simulate a particular fantasy "reality." If you approach the rules as attempts to quantify the possible outcomes of a real problem, then no one ruleset is going to be able to effectively simulate those outcomes. You will constantly have edge cases and "unrealistic" results from your rules that you will need to ignore or develop secondary mechanisms to handle. Hence the "rulings, not rules" mentality you hear associated with "old school" gaming.
I find so much of this largely inaccurate. Because wargames mimick an enjoyable combat simulation meant to be fun for both players. Any mimicry of reality is ultimately aside from this experience.
So it's easy to understand why gamers who grew up viewing their rulesets as attempts to guide them through the resolution of "reality-based" situations would prefer systems where incompleteness and inadequacy are base assumptions of the ruleset.
I also find your assumptions on why people might like things more spelled out to be disconnected from why people ultimately like such systems or experiences. This is more a way to fluff up your own interests.
But ultimately you didn't answer my question. Which was:
Why do you prefer BAD rules, on the principle that you can ignore them? With all the touting of how 'Rulings not rules' OD&D was, one would think it would be a single page with 'I dunno roll a 20' on it. But it's not. Its pages and pages of contradictory (mostly just unfinished) resolution mechanics, with specific examples and things to do in multiple scenarious.
OD&D is far from rules-lite. It's more just fragmented. It's very rules-heavy in many ways. With pages and pages of how stuff interacts, specific effects, powers and abilities.
The reason you don't understand is because you refuse to. You have rejected out of hand the most probable reason for this. The idea that wargamers feel that "mimicry of reality is ultimately aside from [the enjoyable] experience" is belied by many of the documents of the time. Not only did wargames develop as a military tool
specifically to realistically simulate military engagements, but also many of the players are doing so as a speculative exercise, dependent on the realism of the game. The same people who wargame are the same people who argue about what would have happened had Pickett not charged, and they want their game to help represent those outcomes.
So what you consider "bad" rules are just rules that have been glommed together, each intending to simulate a certain kind of thing. They evolved over time; they weren't developed based off of a unified vision or mechanic. And, because of this, they
might seem more realistic than systems developed later based on a system-based perspective to some people. But you've already defined the terms of discussion to reject the obvious reasons, so you'll never understand.
You are also being grossly unfair to early RPGs. It would be like asking why people like to collect or drive Model Ts, when modern cars have so many new inventions. Well, for some people, the feel is better. The same is true with RPGs. Those early RPGs have a very different feel than later, more cohesively designed games. Maybe it's not for you. But unified-systems games are not objectively "better." Which is what you seem to be suggesting...