It may also serve to limit the expression of personal style. Any form of individual expression is not welcome within the collective.
Ha! Good you said "may." How about individual style in driving? Not welcome in the collective! Here's the deal. Wriring must be legible, and legibility must be learned by discipline. Discipline--no matter what the topic--requires a common standard. Musicians who learn the rules are the ones wo have personal style. Back to school you go. In any case, if you search examples of cursive handwriting and pick the nicest of them all, you'll see they're all different. So I think your argument about individual style is a virus.