Human understanding is only one of the things that the coding conventions promote.
They also promote interoperability--that is they allow the reuse and exchange of structural specializations, domain specializations, domain attribute specializations, constraints, and document type shells between different individuals, organizations, and software implementations with a high expectation that they will "just work" or work with very little reimplementation and customization.
So I think it is fair that the coding conventions be MUST requirements.
You can of course argue that any particular requirement or convention isn't justified, but that is a different question.
-Jeff
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