Sage Advice in DRAGON Useless?

I spent last weekend reviewing my Dragon Magazine Archive looking to compile all the "Sage Advice" columns pertinent to 1st edition AD&D. In my quest for AD&D "Dogma" perfection, I'm trying to get a firm grip on ALL the little nuances of the game as seen from the perspective of the creators of the game, and Gygax's original vision in particular.

The first "Sage Advice" column I found was in DRAGON #31, authored by Jean Wells of B3: Palace of the Silver Princess fame. I have heard her name slandered in message boards more than once and thought nothing of it. In fact, I sort of like her writing style and could not see what was so bad about what she wrote. Then, a few articles along I detected a sort of "devil-may-care" attitude about responding to rules-specific questions (few and far between in the mess of munchkin whining and bizarre posts about female dwarf beards, pregnant paladins, and other bizarre questions). It seems she was merely giving her opinion on what to do in all circumstances, not following the new mantra of AD&D which was uniformity in the rules presented.

In the issues before her column ran, and in several "Up on a Soapbox" articles, Gygax spelled out with no uncertain wording that if the rules of the AD&D system were being ignored or changed willy-nilly, then you weren't playing AD&D, but some version of the game unrecognizable to the masses. Then, some issues later, Ms. Wells was spouting out personal solutions to rules-specific questions that contradicted the rules as written. In particular, Gygax felt the need to write an "Out on a Limb" letter calling her out on her decision of whether or not a magic-user could cast a spell while holding a dagger, wand or staff. Her response had been to say that it was permitted, while the rule in the PHB clearly states that BOTH hands must be empty to cast spells. Gygax seemed rather irate about her blatant disregard of the rules and misleading answers. In his usual column, "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" he then continued to point out other problems with the questions she had answered. Interestingly, her "Sage Advice" article, which had run regularly in DRAGON up to that point, failed to make an appearance that issue...

Later articles put forth a disclaimer that only rules-specific questions would be answered. All other matters which were the purview of the individual campaign DM would not be answered. They also changed their policy of answering each and every question sent by mail; from that point onward only pertinent rules questions would be answered, and only in the pages of The DRAGON. I had no idea Ms. Wells had stirred up so much controversy in the early days of The DRAGON. No wonder she's considered a pariah in discussions of rule authenticity. Later articles of "Sage Advice" are more sporadic and have different authors, including Ward, Niebling, and Ms. Wells again, with some reference to "The Sage" whom I believe is actually Gary Gygax.

With all the authors, however, we still got a plethora of answers regarding the same subject. For instance, some authors state that rangers and paladins cast spells at their character level, instead of starting at 1st level and increasing with increasing level. Others make claims that bards receive bonus spells for high Wisdom, while later authors claim this is not the case. Mr. Ward actually answered a question about color spray (which I've touched upon in a previous article), in which he completely ignored the 1 HD per caster level line of the spell. Many questions were raised about trivial rules that could have been answered with simple research. The most important rules regarding initiative and surprise were almost NEVER covered in "Sage Advice" which leads me to believe that they all KNEW that the rules made no sense and could never truly be explained.

So, after compiling over 40 pages of questions and answers from roughly 50 issues of the magazine, I'm wondering if it's worth the effort to continue. The last few articles were spread thinly between a dozen issues of the magazine and dealt with articles covered in the Dragon (which are NOT considered "Official" AD&D rules, unless they received the blessing from Gygax himself). I'm not sure how useful such information will be if this continues. I remember the "Sage Advice" column being much more useful in the 2nd edition era that followed, but since my compilation only brought me up through early 1984, I have 4 more years of issues to slog through in search of golden information for 1st edition AD&D.