Yes, exactly this!
Sure, music is art, art is subjective, and you can totally play with only your pinky held upside down while slamming your right forearm into the body of the instrument to produce vibrations. You can probably even navigate some classic punk rock tunes this way. But that does not mean it's the most efficient or effective way to play.
Your body wasn't designed for this to begin with, and abusing your body can have long term consequences. Plus, the bass sounds much better (I know, this is subjective) when played with some generally agreed upon techniques. You don't HAVE to fret right behind the fret, but it sounds better, cleaner, and is easier to do. If you are choosing to move your finger a half inch back you aren't some brilliant rebel sticking it to the man, you're just making it hard on yourself and making your music sound lousy.
As for fingerings, there are best practices for those, too. Someone might play the whole line on a single string when crossing strings is way easier and sounds cleaner as a result.
I once sat down with Victor Wooten and showed him my progress in learning a very technical and complex piece of his, and he said "That's cool, nobody has ever shown me they learned that before. But, you are making it hard on yourself, if you change these notes to open strings and finger it this way it's going to be easier to play and the open notes will ring longer, which is what I was going for."
He didn't tell me I was wrong but he did show me his way and explain his reasoning. In my opinion, those are the marks of a great teacher. Oh, and that night he played the song at the gig at my request, which was nice to see our little lesson come together in real time on the stage.
