More engine damage

Two things I do differently I guess...
1. I don't clean a piston for re-use without removing the rings even on my lawn mower's Briggs.
2. I don't reuse a ring if an engine has been run enough to seat them.

The ring certainly doesn't know it. But the hand that pulls it certainly does. Use of a ring installer will limit the possibility of bending the ring out of shape, but rings are not designed to be pried open without sustaining some deformation and because it's a flat piece of iron that deformation is in two directions. Deformation increases the potential for sealing problems - not on the bore but on the ring land itself which is probably more crutial. Not using an installer can definitely tweak them very easily. Take a 1mm ring and twist it off, or use the installer and pry the ring wide enough to go over the piston for the 2nd and 3rd time and see how it sits in the grove and how far the gap brows when the ring is sitting "neutral". We're talking race engines here - not a warranty plow truck engine or some low or medium performance deal thrown in a cruise night car.
You want to re-use them that's your prerogative. None of mine will get reused even if Petersen Publishing says it can be.