How do you feel about tracking equipment and encumbrance?

Are these two different things to anyone else? "My hoodlum has a knife, some lockpicks, and a lucky charm" is different than "I'm carrying 12 of 50 pounds for light encumbrance"

Which should be prioritized more in a campaign: realism or drama?

Also really depends on genre, heh.

What has the more authority: GM rulings or game rules?

I put rulings but that's because "I'd love to have fun but the book says no" is kind of stupid. But I do not really like when the GM unilaterally, capriciously, changes things. I like having a workable mental model of how the game works. One that doesn't include the GM's mood.