In this answer (http://law.stackexchange.com/a/8136/4800), Cicero writes:

In general, the issues here are not just about the law, but about what actually occurs in practice.
What should happen under the law is not always what actually does happen.

My questions and answers will be about the law in practice because that matters a whole lot more to me than the law in theory; the latter is only a fallback to help answer questions where the in practice answer is unknown.