Knowing the rules is critical. You need to know what's legal and what's not.
A Junior and his dad made a 3 hour drive to a race Sunday. They didn't meet the start requirements. They had to drive back home with no race for the Junior. The father is still mad but the start requirements couldn't be clearer.
Someone else came up and same thing, one Junior racer couldn't start.
To be fair I think 4 other Juniors showed up while not meeting the start requirements (age, Cat 1-4). They were luckier because they were from New England and the New England rep was much more responsive (and happened to be working the race). They got upgrades to Cat 4 on the spot.
I have the same requirements for Masters in the races I promote (Cat 1-4). Inevitably I get half a dozen emails from Cat 5 Masters asking if they can race. What part of "Cat 1-4" do you not understand?
So it pays to know the rules. You want to buy Mad Fiber wheels? Or run some HED3s in a crit? You think that's legal? What about Nationals, if you were going out to Nationals what bike would you bring? What if you showed up at the TT and the officials told you, sorry, you can't race that, it's not legal. What would you have to show up with for that to happen?
You may not agree with a rule, that's absolutely okay to think a rule is stupid. It may get you DQed or worse if you act on your thoughts. When you get your USAC license (or driver's license or similar things) one of the things you agree to is that you know and follow their rules.