> I am wondering whether a simple auto-updatable view can have a conditional update instead rule.
Well, the decision reached in [1] was that we wouldn't allow that. We could decide to allow it now as a new feature enhancement, but it wouldn't be a back-patchable bug-fix, and to be honest I wouldn't be particularly excited about adding such a feature now. We already get enough reports related to multiple rule actions behaving in counter-intuitive ways that trip up users. I don't think we should be enhancing the rule system, but rather encouraging users not to use it and use triggers instead.