When your minor characters are dead, what happens to cards which are worthless?

Question: When your minor characters are dead, what happens to cards which are worthless?

Answer: The full question is, "When your minor character(s) is (are) dead, you can play their Combat Cards to heal damage to your major character. But what happens to cards which aren't Combat Cards, but are still worthless without the minor characters? For example, the Emperor's Castling card is worthless if both guards are dead."

Several ideas have been discussed related to this issue. The official ruling from Rob Daviau at Hasbro is that they are "dead cards" and worthless.

Some gamers have suggested that: (1) you should be able to play any card (not just Combat Cards) rendered useless by the death of a minor character to heal your major character, or (2) healing works exactly as described in the rules, except each minor character Combat Card is worth 2 points of healing, or (3) playing minor character Combat Cards as healing doesn't cost any points, but remain worth just 1 point of healing. Another suggestion was to eliminate healing altogether and to allow players to discard up to three minor character cards and draw three new ones, at a cost of two actions (an entire turn).

I've always played by the official rules and don't see a particular problem, but some of the suggested variants look interesting.