Thus it seems in the context of providing a friendly and trusting environment that a great many cases of gaming some of the more complex elements is going to occur. One would like to think that the environment engendered by this attitude might give rise to less
occurrence of people trying to do so.
Your point is well taken, but I still think that it would be better to simply enact a blanket restriction if that's the intent of the rule. There are almost certainly people who can and will take advantage of the rule as written (and perhaps people who already have), though I'm sure that it does indeed go some way toward making most players less inclined to do it.
If the thought behind the rule is that strategic secessions are somehow exploitative, unfair, or otherwise have a negative impact on the game then they should simply be banned in all cases; I fail to see why the rule is written with such narrow parameters if that's truly the reason for its existence, hence my earlier conclusion that that probably isn't the case.
