> The rationale was that this and certain other rules of English grammar are artifacts from Latin which don't necessarily belong in our own language. English isn't even a Romance language, yet because Latin was always stressed in the educational system, its grammatical rules were applied to English as well.

Latin purists are attributed with the "no split infinitives" rule, too. In Latin, as in other Romance languages, the infinitive form of a verb is a single word and therefore can't be split anyway -- allegedly this is why split infinitives are disallowed in English, too. I hear the OED has just very recently decided to allow split infinitives in English, though I'm not sure under what conditions. (One pro split infinitive camp believes they should always be permitted; another believes they should only be used if the sentence can't be phrased smoothly or easily without it.)

Personally, I never gave split infinitives any thought at all until only a few years ago. When I developed an ear for recognizing them, something clicked inside of me, and now whenever I hear or, more often, read one, I cringe. Split infinitives are just...ugly. There's something very unappealing about them.

Ending sentences with prepositions, on the other hand, is a rule I rarely have a problem breaking. The usual way to "fix" sentences that end in prepositions often, but not always, sounds more elegant, so I make an effort to rephrase on those occasions when I'm writing something I care about. In the cases the rephrasing is awkward, or in informal writing or speaking, I merrily break the rule without a backward glance.

My favorite unrephraseable example: "Aw, Mom, what'd you bring that book I don't like to be read to out of up for?"

And, of course, we must always remember the words of Winston Churchill, who, when corrected by another on this very rule, said: "That's the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put."