"Avoid Clichés" is a guideline, not a rule

It would be a mistake to understand that any use of any cliché is "wrong," as you humorously do in your question.

Clichés have certain problems (and certain strengths); understand what they are, and you'll better understand what the guideline is aiming at, and why it's good advice as a rule of thumb, even if there's no reason to follow it 100% (nor is it really possible to do so).

Clichés have less impact

Consider the difference between including a cliché in your writing vs. expecting a cliché to feel meaningful.

For example, consider the difference between:

"That guy was mad as a hornet."

"That guy was as mad a tiger with its tail in a trap."

Purely in terms of what's being described, I'd say a hornet is at least as vivid as the tiger. Probably even better, because honestly, an angry hornet is a simple and very vivid image.

But since the cliché is so familiar, the reader won't be imagining a hornet; won't be receiving any vivid imagery. He'll know that "mad as a hornet" just translates as "really mad."

This is not necessarily a problem. Maybe "really mad" is all you're trying to say. Maybe you're not aiming for vivid imagery here.

But, if you were relying on "mad as a hornet" as being a more interesting, way to say "really mad," as being more descriptive and vivid and impactful -- it isn't going to do that job. Don't expect it to.

Clichés often come at the expense of more precise writing

Consider the difference between:

"Bob started cursing me out in Russian. I don't actually Russian, but it was pretty unambiguous, plus he was yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Bob growled and punched the wall. Once, twice, three times."

"Bob had been complaining to me about plot holes in the new Transformers movies for the last three hours, without as much as a bathroom break."

"Bob was mad as a hornet."

"Bob was mad as a hornet" might legitimately describe each of these, but that would lost a ton of information. Being "mad," and even "mad as a hornet," is a generic, abstract thing -- any cliché is; anything too specific can't become that hyper-popular, always-handy go-to phrase.

So a major problem is using a cliché instead of actually portraying the important part of the scene.

Again: not always a problem. "Bob was mad as a hornet about the new Transformers movie, complaining about it for hours and hours" doesn't suffer from this problem (although: once you've explained how Bob is mad, is the "mad as a hornet" really still necessary?). And you don't want to portray every single thing in great detail; sometimes clichés are excellent precisely because you don't want them to occupy to much space or attention.

But a big reason to worry about overuse of clichés, is that if you're using them a lot, it's probably as a cover for not coming up with something more precise, something specific to this particular story. If you keep using clichés for emphasis and/or shorthand, over and over, ask yourself why you need to, and if that kind of emphasis and shorthand is really one you want so frequently.

The above points are as true for plot and character as they are for phrasing.

Avoiding clichés doesn't mean you can't have a swashbuckling rogue, or a boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl plot, etc. etc. What it does mean is that you can't just rely on "OMG will he get the girl?" to capture and sustain the reader's interest; or hope that readers will fall in love with your character if they're a cookie-cutter clone of a dozen others.

Maybe what happens to the rogue is what's interesting in this story. Maybe the relationship in this boy-meets-girl story is what makes it powerful. Maybe the dialogue is fantastic and memorable, even if the plot has been done a million times before. All fine.

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