Rim protection is a waste of time. To me its like discussing the best place to have an ashtray on a bike.
That puts me in mind of something I saw last week, whilst I was sat at a traffic light junction. On the outside of me, this bloke on a push bike pulled up, riding one handed because he had a fag and a can of beer in the other. He was p!ssed out of his head and all over the place. I'll be very surprised if he's still alive. A handlebar mounted ashtray and a beer can holder would have been just the job 
I've done something similar once. Out on my push bike, going along the coast, pass a pub and see some mates sat outside on a nice day. I stop for a pint and 8 pints later I walk the bike home.... There's a stretch of alleyway along the perimeter of a school - wire fence one side and spiky blackberry bushes the other. Of course, away from the road I think it will be fine to ride along it and end up getting well scraped up as I wobble from one side of the alleyway to the other, hitting the bushes and then the fence.
OUCH!
I confess I too have been drunk in charge of a bicycle, and it did not end well. My sister and I were on a regular cycling/camping trip in the Lakes, having biked up from Lancashire (where I lived at the time - a 47 mile ride to Windermere). The nearest pub was 5 miles from the campsite but that was no deterrent. Well it took no time at all to reach the pub and enjoy a few too many refreshments, but the cycle back took rather longer - 3 hours to be precise, and included a lengthy stint in a roadside ditch plus one or two impromptu 'detours', and a lot of giggling. Just how we ever made it back to the tent, I'll never know, but I remember wondering why I was covered in cuts and bruises the next day
There was also a similar ill fated journey on a Honda 50cc moped which involved a tadpole infested ditch, but I'll save that for another time
