More work only matters after a Bitcoin block is valid

I was looking at BTC's circulating supply and max supply on BYDFi, then went back to a question those figures can't answer.When people say "the chain with the most work wins," where does block validity enter? A node has to consider the block valid before its work matters.

Suppose a miner creates a block that pays itself more than the allowed subsidy. Nodes enforcing the existing rules reject it. Adding another block, and then another, does not repair the invalid payment. Accumulated work is used to choose among valid chains. It is not a permit to ignore the supply rule.

Miners could run different software and build on different rules, but everyone else does not automatically follow them. Users, exchanges and merchants still choose which rules their own software and services accept. Running a thousand extra nodes would not create a thousand protocol votes either. Each node validates what it receives.

The supply limit holds as long as participants keep enforcing it. Miners do not get a separate override.