Tedolph opinion.

Ted, I'm not sure how you've turned an artistic/academic topic into a composition circus but well done!

It is possible that the rules can become of the subject of the photo rather than guiding the viewer to the subject.  I see this quite often, a leading line that goes nowhere, a tree framing something unrelated, like a truck/refinery or a photo that has proper framing and use of straight line elements that site exactly on the 1/3 lines but nothing else of interest.

Then it seems that the photographer gets the subject but surrounds it/them with distractions and the viewer can't really decide what the subject is.

This leads me right to simplicity which is so difficult to achieve yet so desirable to view.  It is very challenging, especially in landscape photography, to simplify the idea/subject so that is has power and character/mood.

Those are my thoughts.

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Dan