Yes, a good defense against a charge of burglary would be not having stolen anything. In an imaginary perfect criminal justice system, charges/penalties are based on damage done. Less damage done is a lesser crime.
Hell no. Otherwise you could just set up one gigantic crime by comitting a bunch of small "no damage done" crimes along the way-say, stealing a string of credentials one at a time, but not actually using them until you have all of them together and then you commit your major heist/crime.