Well seems to me that if the movement toward "according to the spec" is causes a problem then the project as a whole has an issue that ought to be worked out.
Actually thinking about this more... I can probally see thier point. They don't have hardware so implementation of all the flags and register correctness is just overhead.
However to even worry about going through this you gotta have a need first and currently I don't think I need it so someone else will probally have to do it or show me why I need it.