Working with a syllabus

This last week I have been thinking about the use of working with a set syllabus.
Jade raised a question recently on the focus of the ISTD modern syllabus on gender differentiation. I agree that this needs to be thought about but on reading more carefully I can see nothing in the syllabus to say that you cannot teach the boys the lyrical work presented by the girls, they just cannot be examined in that work at this time (that may change in the future as more research is done on the subject.)
As a ISTD teacher and examiner I use syllabus work to inform my children's classes and then I go beyond the syllabus to ensure that my classes are interesting and inspiring. At vocational level I tend to work even more outside the syllabus but I come back to the syllabus work when I feel there is a need to repeat technical exercises over several lessons to improve muscle memory.
I often find myself questioning the syllabus content and adapting it to suit a particular group of students or any new research that I have come across. Yet I still return to the syllabus to ensure that my work has a structure that the parents and children can follow and I enter children and students for exams to give them goals within their learning.
I use the syllabus as a framework to inform my teaching and as such I believe it has value, but I can see that some teachers may think of the syllabus as all they need to teach; if the children can perform the syllabus exercises then they will be dancers. I believe this kind of thinking is damaging as it hinders personal interpretation and creativity, the syllabus is just a guideline, a tool to help teachers build classes appropriate to the cognitive and physical development of the students.
As to whether one syllabus is better than another, I think that may be individual. My research on the question of using a syllabus has led me to reflect on the benefit of creating ones own syllabus or not using a syllabus at all.
I would love to hear what other people think on this subject.