I believe you and I think alike. The truth is, I was brought on as a consultant to help this client, so I do not have the authority to fire the developers. Rather, I am trying to help them fix the absolute worst designed DB and coding I have seen in 15 years of working with PostgreSQL. So I've asked for input on additional guidelines to help try to help them understand the right way to do things.
Unfortunately, so far, people seem to fixate on item one of my guidelines and I've had no additional suggestions.
What is occurring is that the developers are sending strings like 'Mr. M\'vey', which, if we set standard_conforming_strings = ON, would, and does, result in errors and the statement failing, which is a lot less desirable that a simple warning.
if your developers were writing invalid C code (or whatever other language they program in), would you modify the compiler to accept their invalid syntax? or would you tell the developer to fix their code properly ? if the developers refused, why would you not fire them on the spot for incompetence ?