The truth is somewhere in between. A few points:
There are rules of grammar that advise writers on how to write in the "best" way, whatever that may be.
There is a certain consensus among educated writers about many of those rules. The rules for the prepositions you mentioned are accepted by most of them, or so I believe, though some of the ones I saw have more than one option.
Even so, many people will break those rules on occasion, either in error or in conscious deviation.
There are also words that can take several prepositions according to the rules, depending on meaning. Take the word "match" from your example: "we are no match for the English longbows" means we can be easily defeated by them; "that shirt is a good match with your pants" means the shirt is a good fit with the pants; "we will win the match against the red team" means we will win the game against the red team.
Lastly there are words that can take several prepositions with little or no difference in meaning, according to the rules.
Note that a prepositional phrase can belong to a preceding noun, or it can be used adverbially to belong to the whole sentence in general.
He was in charge of the whole operation because
only he could
The prepositional phrase "of the operation" is closely tied to "charge". In what kind of charge was he? - In charge of the whole operation. In this case, only "of" is possible, because only "of" can be used to express the specific kind of relation between "charge" and "the operation".
I was in charge during the first part
of the expedition.
"During the first part" belongs to the sentence as a whole, or to the verb - not to "charge" specifically. In this case, a great many prepositions could be used, because there are many prepositions that can introduce adverbial constituents (in the forest, under the circumstances, after midnight, etc.).
Those rules you quoted do not apply to this: they are meant to teach you special combinations of
word + preposition + x, in which the relation between
x is of such a character that you would expect it to be expressed by another preposition, had you not known that this specific
preposition was to be used in this specific combination.