Shouldn't reaching an octet be any atom's "goal"?

However, I've recently learned about cases that are either expanding octets, or have lesser than "enough" electrons for an octet abiding. e.g.:

S in Sulfur hexafluoride (Expanding octet with a $\text{3d}$)



Source

B in Boron trifluoride (It's "hexet", instead of octet)



Source

However, both $\ce{SnCl2}$ and $\ce{SnCl4}$ are existent. The latter is explainable with octet, but not the former. Surprisingly, $\ce{SnCl2}$ is more stable! 


How?
Why is the phenomenon happening?




Dave pointed out that the octet nonabidingness is happening in the vapor phase. So I redirect the question to ask about the vapor phase; since that's what I'm looking for.


Question: How do I make certain areas editable?
Answer: These links should help you:
http://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop

http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_get_nav_menu_items

with this two techniks you can give your client the ability to change the content and the navigation. For these you have to edit your theme and insert the snippets on the placese you want to output your contents....

For the footer you can use a custom page  maybe footer 

    $loop = new WP_Query( 'pagename=footer' );
    while ( $loop-&gt;have_posts() ) : $loop-&gt;the_post();
        the_content(); 
    endwhile;