It's important to remember that this "rule" should only be applied to words in which the "ie" is to be pronounced as a long e ("ee"). There are certainly many exceptions, but most of those on nieken's list don't count. If we eliminate those that follow the "except after C" part of the rule, and words such as leisure and either, where are not necessarily pronounced with a long e, we are left with the following exceptions:
- caffeine
- codeine
- protein - These three are chemical terms, so I would contend that you wouldn't try to apply the rule in any case.
- fadein - I have no idea what this word is
- seise - This is an archaic spelling of "seize" (see below)
- seizure - A genuine, bona fide exception.
- weird - Well, "weird" is just weird, but I would contend that the vowel sound in this word is a diphthong rather than a long e. It's more like wee-ird than weerd.
In conclusion, it is not a hard and fast rule, but there are not as many exceptions as you might think. If, like Citizen Aim, you were taught in school that this rule applies to the spelling of all words containing an adjacent i and e, then you were taught by idiots. An all too common experience...