Grammar as a HOC

So recently Elena sent out an email to the WC listserv talking about a proposal she wanted to draft about thinking about grammar as a HOC because it affects things like tone, voice, structure, and so on. I thought it was interesting and immediately connected to the idea, since I am also a grammar lover. I think I fall slightly more in the prescriptivist camp than the descriptivist, though I recognize the uselessness of saying that something is absolutely right or wrong since almost every "rule" changes/is changing and some are highly debated. But I do think that grammar is important. I think that knowing how to use it greatly widens the possibilities of how one can write things, and also that a fairly solid knowledge of grammar can really help to create a specific voice. Some people like complex grammatical forms, some people like simple grammatical forms. But frequently using things like comma splices and run-on sentences does nothing to develop a nice-sounding, unique voice for any writer. I think being able to hear your own voice in a paper really contributes to feeling like you are a writer, not just a student/person who writes, or in the case of assignments, is forced to write. Knowing how to use grammar also enables writers to "break the rules" in certain cases for many stylistic reasons; maybe they want emphasis, or to point out something about language, or to enhance part of a character's personality, or any of hundreds of other reasons a writer might choose to deviate from a conventional pattern. But this kind of choice isn't possible if writers don't know that it can be a choice in the first place. I feel like Elena probably has much more logical-sounding and well thought out reasons for thinking of grammar as a HOC, and I hope that whatever she does succeeds in helping other people understand the potential importance of grammar in a session.