I couldn't agree more. These "rules" are to help people avoid really really bad presentations. They shouldn't be viewed as an official way of making good presentations.

The "say what you're going to say, say it and then say what you said" rule is probably the worst offender here. It's meant to stop people missing out important context but very often it just leads to boring repetition.

Funny you should mention stand-up comedians because the best presentation advice I ever got came from a workshop my company arranged that was given by a standup comedian. His main message was to follow the "hero's tale" format, which you'd think doesn't apply to tech presentations, but you'd be surprised how often it actually does.