Odd that you'd see it that way, because Express workgroups tend to disagree. They tend to see managers who treat the jackarses who walk all over them with the same respect that they treat employees who work by the book as poor managers. A common theme is that they feel that the manager is too scared to do anything about the guy who misuses his sick days and so on, and that they feel that continuing to play by the book will hurt them because the "bad guys" will somehow manipulate, deviate, or subvert people/situations/policies for their own benefit. Seeing it happen over and over only serves to reinforce that perception and it eventually leads to a belief that the manager doesn't matter and it gets worse from there.
If you've never worked for someone who didn't establish and enforce boundaries about what is and isn't acceptable then you should consider yourself lucky.
Some of those benefits are at the discretion of operational needs. As far as your reliance on the "higher standard," in the real world you don't get to be a slacker/malcontent and then complain that your manager isn't giving you the same discretion that he gives to a normal human.