"how are you deciding what authority or weight you give?"

Great question. I judge first by the nature of the issue, because authoritative sources such as IRS won't always provide a combined answer for this type of topic, in the way a blog might do so. Instead of one blog (which might have reference links, hopefully), the IRS or Cornell references will be 3 or 4 individual references that must be related to make sense, The perspective of good sources such as Spidell and Investopedia and even Nerd Wallet is more "man on the street" or "what it means in reality, not Congress."

It also depends on the forum or community. This isn't the only place I participate, and some are geekier and some are "common man." Some participants (looks to Bob) will want quoted authorities. Some want a directly applicable answer. And I always warn people, it's not just AI or Google results you can't trust. With all the changes after 2017 TCJA that were short-term solutions, provisions, and retroactive changes, don't rely on something if you can't also determine the date it applies/applied. The link I provided is from 2014, but nothing I found indicates any change to the Accountable Plan reimbursement provisions as asked here. If I hadn't been able to check it, I wouldn't have posted it.