TFBT: Impact of the Iliad on You

I am in the delightful position of re-reading "Models of Reception in the Divine Audience of the Iliad ".  A masterpiece on the topic by Tobias Anthony Myers 

As usual it stirs up many questions.  Let me start with the assumption in my head that causes my confusion.  I assume that the Iliad is the foundation story of the Ancient Greek civilization and Hellenistic Age.  It was performed regularly in Athens before 20,000 friendly faces and presumably at other festivals.  It is conceivable that at aristocratic dinner parties (like the Phaeacians' in the Odyssey ) it was the entertainment after dinner .  It was THE text-book for students; Greek, wannabe Greeks and Romans for centuries. And surely every school boy performed at least the first six lines at his recital, so that mom and dad knew they were getting their money's worth.  In short that every literate person for centuries back then had read or memorized the Iliad, that many, many people heard the Iliad and that virtually everyone knew the story.  Myers comments;

"The poet’s insertion of the truce episode in Book 3, whose terms guarantee friendship thereafter between Trojans and Achaeans (3.94), has implicitly invited his listeners to consider a scenario in which Troy does not fall after all. Zeus now explicitly issues the same invitation to the gods on Olympus: “well!, the city of lord Priam could continue to be inhabited....” (ἤτοι μὲν οἰκέοιτο πόλις Πριάμοιο ἄνακτος 4.18). Both Zeus and the poet thus provide the opportunity for their respective auditors to contemplate the possibility of an early end to the war. The model provided by Zeus within the text raises the possibility that the poet, too, is doing this teasingly – to provoke a response.This is not the first time that the poet has teased his listeners in this way. Agamemnon’s testing of the troops in Book 2 causes a stampede for the ships, which the poet makes vivid and urgent by describing it with the same grand similes and other language normally used to give a sense of magnified scale and significance. He then explicitly invites his audience to imagine the consequences"

My question; is this teasing idea true?  Did the assembled gods and goddesses (some of whom were prophetic) mortal audiences then and now, and literate  people  throughout history ever consider a different ending to the story?  When Zeus suggests altering the story line by saving Sarpedon in book 16 his lovely and loving wife responds 

"439] Then ox-eyed queenly Hera answered him: "Most dread son of Cronos, what a word hast thou said! A man that is mortal, doomed long since by fate, art thou minded to deliver again from dolorous death? Do as thou wilt; but be sure that we other gods assent not all thereto. And another thing will I tell thee, and do thou lay it to heart: if thou send Sarpedon living to his house, bethink thee lest hereafter some other god also be minded to send his own dear son away from the fierce conflict; for many there be fighting around the great city of Priam that are sons of the immortals, and among the gods wilt thou send dread wrath."

I wonder if the chaos and anger that Hera foretells in the realm above would be reflected in the response of the 20,000 should a rhapsodist attempt the non-traditional rescue of Sarpedon.  People don't like their classics fiddled with.  I recall the hail-storm of hatred and vicious criticism that met the recent remake of "The Rocky Horror Picture" even before filming began

So again,  considering the promised wrath of the assembled gods and potentially riotous audiences, are you expected to take serious threats of hypermoraimism in the Iliad?