When I was studying from my professor of composition at Keimyung university in South Korea he said that for modernist music, what your write should be logical. That's the primary criteria. When you examine Coltrane's music you can ask yourself why he could do something different [seemingly just pulling it out of the air] from everyone else using a 3 tonic system instead of the prevailing 4 tonic system. I think the reason is not so much because it inherently satisfies expectations of what notes sound best over the chord accompanying the soloist but because it already possesses formal logic. The augmented scale is like a ladder of grouped half steps extending off to the left diagonally. If you climb that ladder while you play a different motive on each step, you instinctively hear that there's still something logical about what's being played. I don't personally think you have to start on C or whatever [or use only the augmented scale] to make that work. It's going to sound good no matter what note you start on because its already possessed of formal logic, the same way Ives or Bartok can put any two keys together and make that work. The augmented scale's configuration is Trane's unifying element. It helps if there's a modernist context of course and the quartal chords help satisfy that criteria with Trane's music. I think if you're going across the guitar in 4ths with your first finger, it doesn't matter what three note pattern you choose to play on each one. The fact that you're moving uniformly in 4ths is enough. Or if you're going back and fourth playing twice on each string. That's a logical pattern. It also will sound good if you make your motives crawl up a string in half steps even though you're seemingly disregarding the chord because it sets up an expectation which is all that's required. You've probably all heard of process music. You set up the parameters and then let it work itself out. The composer steps aside and he's not involved any more. One composer I spoke with on the net talked about how that's boring and what's most interesting is when/where the composer chooses to break the pattern. That's what goes through my mind concerning a justification for ignoring the chords, and proper scales.