HitlerZ MinionZ

Ok, here is the question that has been nagging me for the last year:
If writers are meant to be such awesome creative beings then why is the publishing process/industry such a Nazi institution?

For those of you who really have no clue what I am babbling about, here are a few examples:

1. http://www.speculations.com/format.htm The writer’s manuscript (MS) must -- and I seriously mean MUST -- be formatted exactly as this link shows. It must have the same font, same spacing, same underlining and dividing techniques.
2. http://www.speculations.com/slush.htm If said writer’s MS is not, indeed, picture perfect then this link shows how your Magnus Opus, your hearts pouring, your piece of art that you have spent months if not years working on, will end up… in the recycle bin.

Everything I've read says these miserly guidelines are to make the editor’s job an easier one. The font and the double spacing are there to protect the editor’s eyesight, adding the universal # to signal the end of chapter is there because… well I've no clue. To top it off, the writer must have the word “end” at the finish line of his MS… or if they are feeling particularly inspired they can even get away with “####” but defiantly no more than the four #’s.

I can understand that text that will be italicized must be underlined in the MS because italics are easy to overlook, however, when an editor busts out a ruler to check that my margins aren’t an mm off? What is that exactly? Ill tell you what that is… it is a kickback from Hitler’s rule.

In an industry that requires the writer to be more imaginative, artistic, and original than those that came before him, how are these rigid rules helping to maintain that creativity? How can they expect such resourceful beings to accept such stifling rules so easily? (I'm not going to answer that, I'm just posing another question that has been scratching away at me.)

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