Hello Brian
It really sounds like you’re a hard core networking guy. That’s great! You know, I’d say that Cisco engineers in general share a unique camaraderie that’s unlike anything else. Others can’t understand why we like networking so much! It’s just cool! I understand you completely.
As for the opposition you face when suggesting best practices in networking, it’s usually the case where you’d have the administration opposing changes “since everything already seems to work.” It’s when things fail because of lack of redundancy, or voice and data on the same VLAN or other similar issues that they come back and say “well why didn’t we do it right the first time?” It’s a matter of making them understand the issue in simple terms, which is not always easy! 
I’m glad we can be of help to you here at Networklessons. This really is a great place for network-loving engineers to dig deeper into the things we like so much…
Keep at it and looking forward to continuing our discussions!
Laz