However good your intentions, if you don't strictly abide by the rule, you must take the punishment. If you break the 3RR, you break policy. If we apply the rules one way for some people and another for others, chaos will ensue. If we apply policy objectively, then no-one can make accusations of favoritism.
Smoddy
Absolutely. If your edits really are the editorially correct thing for the article, it should be no problem to get someone else to revert with you. Thus only the allegedly irrational party of an edit war will break the 3RR, but not the supposedly NPOV editors do. Applying the 3RR to individuals and not "versions" is a kind of built-in safety in my opinion.
Already people make excuses for breaking the rule, and I don't think we should legitimize them.