Well, sometimes you kinda have to house-rule things, because some things just don't WORK as written. At all.
Besides, that's one spell I've never, and will never, allow in a game.
Sure, I do believe this was the sentiment put forward by the camp I'm in from the beginning.
Not sure what camp that is. But PaO never worked as written. As Caelic said, reading it that way is making just as much up as TG does, or I did by telling people to turn stones into Solars.
Also, since there is no size restriction I know off, you could turn any number of stones into suns, or whatever, having short range and doing that is probably a good idea unless you can get away fast.