Typography is an art, and as such it can't be reduced to a formula. A good design education, which takes years, will teach you some common-sense guidelines about what works for children, for advertising, for books and magazines, and so forth. But clients hire a designer because he or she has the skill to use type in unexpected and pleasing ways.

Any fool can pick type off a list, and most of the "inappropriate" uses of type you refer to are the work of clients who didn't want to spend money hiring a professional designer.

This would be a great advanced degree topic. Even though
something like this could never be understood in absolutes,
there certainly are parameters running around, and trying
to grasp them is part of our responsibility.

BTW, an art?! It's many other things more.

hhp

You should also consider fads.

As soon as a usage becomes conventional, creatives will turn it on its head, keeping the tabulators one step behind.

I agree with Nick :)

You can give some guidelines, such as that some fonts are less suitable for extended text, or for small sizes on the screen. But beyond such practical constraints, once you are dealing primarily with aesthetics, trying to do something like this is a fools errand, if you ask me.

But one step behind something.
Which is many times better than navel-gazing.

hhp

I think one of the strengths of good design is re-purposing things.

Mojo: some common-sense guidelines
It can be concluded to be basic parameter

people! i found something in my mind!

will teach you some common-sense guidelines about what works for children, for advertising, for books and magazines, and so forth

The same thing like this happen in the physics too.
You don't need to count the momentum of a force in your car when you want to stop. You just guess the right way to stop the car. The experiences teach us. But, why physic has so many basic rules that Typography don't.