Which Version Do You Like? (or, Anatomy of a Revision)

Regarding my post on "What does it mean to keep Christmas?":

Each of these opening paragraphs is adequate. One is better.

Before
I, like many others, more eagerly anticipate Christmas each year, and ever more deeply mourn its passing each year. Our holiday hopes are increasingly higher, which only means they are dashed from a greater height.

After
I, like many others, more eagerly anticipate Christmas each year, and each year more deeply mourn its passing. Our holiday hopes are increasingly greater, which only means they are dashed from a greater height.

The 2nd makes a couple improvements:

1. In the first sentence, closing the distance between the repeated cycle ("each year") instead of the activity ("mourning") emphases the cycle, and saves the activity for a small denouement; it makes your ear wait a bit, and in any case is more suitable for an observation on a periodic event. I also enhances the echo between "more eagerly" and "more deeply"

2. In the second sentence, I first described the amplitude of hope with height; but I wanted the hope to drop proportionally to the height, and I wasn't happy with the implied cliché "high hopes." "Greater hope" is more seasonal, and the repetition of "greater" more satisfying (at least to me) than repeating variations on height.(BTW I’m still not h happy with the 2nd line, there is one niggling thing I can’t let go it, just can’t put my finger on it.).

Sometimes you can't analyze it, you just know it. Just like in the preceding sentence (the one you just read before this one); I separated two independent clauses with a comma. Verboten in the school room, and most of our newspapers, magazines, and business writing.

I understand why, and you are welcome to disagree. It's not, IMHO, because we can't trust ourselves to learn and break rules (although that's probably part of it), it's because those that teach the language you and I speak don't understand why these two sentences have subtly different effects.

Sometimes you can't analyze it, you just know it.
Sometimes you can't analyze it; you just know it.

And that is a pedagogical tragedy.

And I used to teach, so I know what I'm talking about.

And yes, there is absolutely nothing wrong with starting an English sentence with a conjunction. If you're speaking Latin, you have my sympathy.