Cimorene

Well, I don't think our attitudes to eggcorns make that much difference to them! They arise naturally from the way people's brains work, and in some cases the language evolves naturally. Apparently the first examples of "free reign" go all the way back to the 19th century; perhaps it will rise to equal popularity in time and the usage advice will change.

Language is a tool for communication and in plenty of contexts the only important thing is getting one's message across, so errors are irrelevant. And in plenty of other contexts - like, dialects and registers - the rules of so-called standard usage are pointless pedantry. It's not just that the written medium is more standardized than the spoken, though; it's also that even when it actually doesn't matter at all from context, sometimes unintentional eggcorns (and misplaced modifiers and simple homophone and near-homophone confusions and spoonerisms...) are just funny - in fact sometimes ambiguous grammar makes phrases accidentally funny even when they're not incorrect, and there's nothing wrong with any of that.