Unless the wold in question is fundamentally different (Like being flat), people on it are probably going to align themselves based on the rotation in some way. At it's most basic, all you need to do this is to look at the stars.

My understanding is that the rotaton of the planet is part of what generates the magnetic field, so significant divergence between the magnetic and rotational axes would be rare. Uranus is the only planet we know to be like this.

Not changing everything just for the sake of changing it does not imply a "strong lack of imagination on the author's part" and simply making such arbitrary changes is not particularly creative or imaginative.