naaah, these newly formed rules in this case are not essential to the operation of the forums. they are a form of improving the community, but they are not part of the core structure of the clan system. since the clans system was present before these rules and there was barely any negative feedback (i don't have access to the PMs sent to the clan mods but i have never seen any thread like this before), we can assume that.

in that case, making an exception to the rule for the (arguably deserving) clans would not be making the rules irrelevant, it would be more of a VIP status. the catch here is whether a clan is deserving of that immunity (what would the criteria be, would it be based on the contributions of the clan as a whole or the members, it's relevance etc.) and whether this immunity is a good idea. you can argue if it is for the better or worse of the community, but you can't really say that it makes the rules necessarily irrelevant.