Even greats such as bassist Andy Gonzalez and percussionist Steve Berrios, who play together as though joined at the hip, can disagree as to which side of the clave a particular groove begins. People tend to think of the clave as inviolable, or that the clave police will come in and say, 'Gimme those drumsticks. It's a fundamental rule of music, but it doesn't supplant the music. I think the consensus is that there is one clave. The confusion is that it depends on which side of it you start on.
People frequently fly in the face of the rules of clave.
Chico does this all the time in his writing. You have to have enough flexibility in your approach not to be enslaved by it. Clave helps us to understand that music is a living breathing thing. It helps govern the music, but it isn't the music itself. I might play a different voicing or a sparser rhythm, but I'd always vary it.