I value sportsmanship very highly. The way a driver carried himself on the track, or the way a team approach the sport matters to me. I'd rather see a driver or a team voluntarily give up an unfairly earned advantage than have it lead to a penalty.
Where I value the written letter of the rules above all else is in the technical regulations. If it doesn't say you can't do it, you can. If a measurement is what makes a car legal, meet that measurement.
I'd be curious as to how you would apply your criteria to an incident in 2007.
The Ferrari had a flexible floor flap controlled by a buckling stay. There was a static test for the resistance required for the floor flap, but Ferrari found a way around it so that their floor passed that particular test whilst moving at speed under a higher load.
However, apart from that specific test, there was an overarching rule (3.15 at the time) stating that no part of the sprung mass of the car and having an aerodynamic influence could be movable [beyond the inescapable deflection inherent in the material].
Ferrari argued that the floor passed the specific static test and was therefore legal.
McLaren argued that the floor needed to pass both the specific static test and the overarching 3.15 which applied to all parts of the sprung mass and was therefore illegal.
So, in your mind (or the mind of anyone else here), should 3.15 have made the flexible floor illegal, or was the static test all that mattered, or was the floor legal according to the technical rules but in violation of the 'rules' of sportsmanship?