Actually, I'd think that situation is very common--"culture wants to incorporate useful-but-alien god/spirit/saint into its familiar framework".
Keep in mind that concentration is rare. And if you're not concentrated, there's no penalty to misapplied worship. A typical Praxian doesn't find Sword Man "spirits" any harder to work with than Waha or Oakfed spirits. Oh, sure, the shaman grumbles when he has to deal with Sword Man, says how the spirits just feel wrong and it always gives him a headache--but to the typical nomad-on-the-street, the spirits are all the same.
And if you *are* concentrated, misapplied worship becomes even *more* useful. That shaman finds Sword Man "spirits" a pain to work with-- but he couldn't worship Humakt at all.
So since there's no penalty for misapplied worship (for most Gloranthans), I'd expect that it happens a lot. Your theistic culture picks up a new skill--paper-making, say--from Next Culture Over. The neighbors have a saint who teaches useful paper-making spells. But veneration just feels weird and stuffy. Well, a heroquester comes back and says, hey, you know what? Turns out there's a god who knows about paper-making too! And here's his feats! Sacrificing to the new "god" gives you as much bang for the buck as veneration does, and feels a lot more normal, so why not go with it?
In particular, I'd bet the Lunars are very good about coming up with misapplied-worship versions of their deities for neighbors (and the less-lunarized) to work with. It lets people adapt to the lunar way by nice, easy stages.
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