If you are going to do anything...

... please for the love of god, do it according to building codes.

The former owners of my house built a floating deck without a permit. That is legal. However, they did not use proper stringers for the stairs, they did not put the railings to the right height, and they did not close in the gap in the railings.

Now that the siding is done, and the deck is back in place... guess what my next job is....

(Time to confirm the building codes.)

You may as well be asking people to obey all traffic laws or not cheat on their taxes. I would bet that if you asked those folks when they were building, they would tell you it is to code. Though it's their interpretation of code.
The age of the construction would also be a factor because what is illegal today was common and legal years ago.

If you ever go to the famous Frank Lloyd Wright house in Pa named Falling Water and on the upper level there is the famous cantalivered deck you can walk out on over the creek that runs under and thru the home. When you are on that deck the railing that keeps you from falling about 30’ down on the rocks and creek is about 24” high. He wanted a look from the outside and he wanted the view from the deck to be uninterrupted. They warn you when you walk out to be careful and if you have kids to not let them free of your hand. But back in the day no one thought anything at all was wrong with designing like that. The house would look so different if they made them put a high railing to code.

I try and follow code as for the most part it is for the best and if I ever resell the house I don’t want a bunch of things pointed out. The house we just bought had a wheel chair ramp that was really well built and designed and leads to the parking area. We don’t have wheel chairs yet but it really is a nice way to get from the driveway to the house. We call it the boardwalk. Well it was built to code and had the mid rail and the toe rail. That first winter that stupid toe rail made it almost imposable to keep the snow off. Come spring I took it all off and now can just use a push broom and sweep the snow off the edge. In that case not to code is better and safer IMO.