Thing is, Iains, if enough people over sufficient time use a word or phrase in a particular way then it becomes, with a shrug from the dictionary writers, standard English. But that doesn't mean it suddenly becomes beautiful and elegant English. Just think. Raze gives us razor. "To the ground" is fine if you really want to use it. But, to me, it implies that the person using the term, sadly, hasn't given thought as to the origin and connections of this slightly unusual, very useful and economical word. "Raze to the ground" is a pleonasm, no less than "the rain will have cleared by 6am in the morning." It also, subliminally, invites ridicule by dint of its paradoxical allusion to something being raised down instead of up.

I hate "fraught with" but the fight with that is long lost.

And never try to correct any of us ever again, Iains, until you have learned that "self-appointed" is hyphenated.