I believe that our legal system has a long history of not prosecuting "de minimus" violations. A classic example might be not enforcing a speed limit were the individual accused of going 1 mile over :-). I submit that a deck on grade is such a minimal violation- if it is one at all!
Moreover, we also have a doctine of not applying a law where such application would result in a greater harm. We're not going to prosecute someone for driving without a license if the driver has had a heart attack- and they're being rescued. This would apply to such examples as the house on stilts because of flooding (or tides).
Indeed, in the case of follding, we can construe "grade", for our purposes, to be the high-water mark!
Has the code gotten away from "minimum for safety" and into "design" here? I agree that an outside receptacle, in a useable location, is mighty nice- but do we really want to require it?
