"we can buy as many of those items as we want... But we can never place them because we don't buy them in Buy mode, but at a register."
I am seeing so much persecution of the rules that I have now become quite confused and I was doing fine before. You say that we can purchase items from stores but they can never be placed on the lot. I think there has to be an exception to the nectar maker. If you ban placing the nectar maker as one of your 2 items, then you are essentially cutting off nectar making as a career and I don't think that this goes along with the spirit of the tournament round. I would say that all careers have to be an option of play. I can understand that a nectar maker would need to sell all bottles of nectar straight from the inventory and not store them on the property grounds.
I would think that if you buy a machine or something that has to be placed to used from a register, then it should be allowed to be used as one of your 2 items that you purchase and place on the lot. It's each to say buy mode items/items from registers that must be placed in order to be used. Training dummy, block breaker, tents, fortune cookie maker, nectar maker are all things that must be placed in order to use, so they should be able to be counted among the 2 things your sim can buy.
Perhaps it might be easier to make the rule that you can buy anything you want from anywhere but you can only buy 4 placeable objects per house, once you buy something that has to be placed in order to use, you have used 1 of your 4, and then just clarify that gardening is planting things not placing them.
I'm not sure if there is too much information in this post but I feel it was something that had to be posted and have a ruling from the judge.