Is leniency allowed in the chains of reports on virtuous deeds?

In al-Kifaya, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi devotes a chapter to "strictness in legal hadith and leniency in virtuous deeds". ¹ He opens it by saying that several of the early scholars held that hadiths concerning what is lawful and unlawful may be carried only from someone free of accusation and far from suspicion, whereas hadiths of encouragement, admonition and the like may be written from shaykhs generally. ¹

• Sufyan al-Thawri: do not take this knowledge on the lawful and unlawful except from leaders known for learning, who recognise additions and omissions; there is no harm in other shaykhs for the rest. ²
• Sufyan ibn Uyayna: do not hear from Baqiyya what concerns a sunna, but hear from him what concerns reward and the like. ²
• Ahmad ibn Hanbal: "When we narrate from the Messenger of God ﷺ on the lawful and unlawful, sunnas and rulings, we are strict about the chains; when we narrate from the Prophet on virtuous deeds and what neither sets nor lifts a ruling, we are lenient about the chains." ² In al-Maymuni's report from him: heart-softening hadiths may be treated leniently until something containing a ruling comes. ²
• Abu Zakariyya al-Anbari: when a report neither forbids the lawful, nor permits the forbidden, nor establishes a ruling, but concerns encouragement, warning, strictness or concession, it should be passed over lightly and its transmitters treated leniently. ²

Just before it, in the chapter on choosing to hear from trustworthy men and disliking narration from the weak, al-Khatib gives Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi's saying: a man should not busy himself writing the hadiths of the weak, for the least of it is that he misses as much of the hadith of the trustworthy as he writes of theirs. ¹ There he also reports Malik saying he met Aisha bint Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas and judged her weak, and Waki' saying: woe to the traditionist when a man of hadith judges him weak. ¹