The only trick with the walking-by PWP rewrite would be hitting the minimum word count. Though now I'm imagining a PWP written from the POV of the door, which would capture both what's happening in the room, and the reactions of people outside the room...

I think if a story engaged in character-bashing, it's fair to shake it up a bit. And even rewriting poor Rodney could be done in a somewhat subtle fashion. Maybe.