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I recall reading that Postel's law did not mean "accept input that flagrantly ignores the standard", but merely wherever the standard might be read differently, accept all conceivable interpretations of the standard. Unfortunately, I can't remember for sure where I read this, or how authoritative it was.

Postel's original formulation is not written in an essay, but an RFC, and does not elaborate on what he meant: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc761

Here's one discussion that suggests this interpretation, without precisely ascribing it to Postel: http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2011/8/114933-the-robustness-p...