To the first point... Eh, I...don't fully agree? I mean, it is subjective. But I do feel that there are elements of the HSR setting that are necessary for the characters to be those characters.

The Xianzhou story wouldn't be the Xianzhou story without the background conflict between the Abundance and the Hunt, with the backgrounds that make up the different factions of the Xianzhou natives, the Foxians (vs Borisin), the Vidyadhara. If you start generalizing too much into just social positions/jobs/etc, then you start getting into the realm of archetypes, and you start losing the specific flavors of a particular setting.

But, the amount of "acceptable deviation" from strict canon is something that is subjective to each reader. So I am just talking about me here.