The issue is not whether it is legitimate to have integer
operations. It is whether literal values should be interpreted as
integers by default.

Division by literal values should default to the accurate result, not
the inaccurate result. So 1/3 should default to 0.3333.. If I have
declared a variable x as in integer, then it is reasonable that x/3
(where x = 1) should return 0. But nowhere was I asked to declare
that 1 was an integer, or that 3 was an integer. So this behaviour
makes SQL arithmetic quite esoteric, and accident prone.