The world we live in is built on arbitrary decisions from our ancestors. Every decision made, while each informed in its own way, has some aspect that doesn’t have any rhyme or reason. Were just stuck building on an oddly shaped base that the past has made for us.
As an example take the greatest unit system: metric. The system is almost perfect, it both has units that are perfect for both math and science, is rigidly defined, and the majority of the world has adopted it. So wheres the arbitrarity? Metric is based off of single arbitrary units which are used to define everything else (for example the second). Many an American sitting high and mighty upon their dumpster-fire of a system has pointed out how the meter is too big for every-day use or that Celsius has the livable range in a smaller range than imperial. While you could fight arguments like this by pointing out how nice metric is mathematically, most people living everyday lives don’t have to worry about this, all they care about is being able to ask how far it is to the store. The thing that truly condemns imperial however is one crucial point: standardization. While neither metric or imperial are perfect systems, metric has the leg up in the regard that it is widely adopted.
While some sources may create a great approximation of truth, it will still fall short in some regard. This isn't to downplay the achievements of non-fiction writers, it is simply to point out the hypocrisy of trying to form an absolute truth. Creatively writing non fiction is in essence a contradiction, because in trying to bring a unique tone to a truth you add your own filter to obscure accuracy. We can never say anything truly without bias, but tools like science can help us clear away the haze of misinformation. Even if it can’t perfectly accomplish that, it’s the best we have.
It doesn’t matter how perfect a system or utility is if it isn’t used by anyone. There comes a point where if a new system would take away from a widely used standard it shouldn’t be implemented without good reason. When given the choice of implementing an existing standard or making a new one, unless theres an extremely good reason for improving and making a new greater standard, stick with the best existing one. Standards tend to proliferate when people decide they can make a new “universal” standard (see xkcd 927). More often than not its better to work to get a flawed standard to have everyone agree on rather than trying to force a new one into the mix. A true standard doesn’t need to be optimal performance wise, it only needs to be widely accepted without competition.