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Rich,

Let me take your idea of distilling what I like about variants into one
variant and see how far it will go. What I like about variants is playing a
variety of different games that each has its own character, due to having
its own rules, pieces, and/or board. How can this be distilled into one
game? It can't be. It is impossible. We may combine elements of different
games together, but the resulting game will have its own character, and it
will not preserve the character of the other games. For example, Eurasian
Chess combines elements of Chess and Xiangqi, but it does not have the same
character as either of these games. To give a more extreme example,
Knightmare Chess borrows elements from a wide variety of variants, and it
is a very enjoyable game, but it also has a very different character than
other variants. The idea of distilling what I like about variants into one
game is dead in the water. It is no more viable than distilling what I like
about different foods into one food or what I like about different TV shows
into one TV show. Just to pick two of the TV shows I watch, is there any
viable way to distill what I like about Family Guy and Smallville into a
single TV show? There isn't. The character of each show is so different
from the character of the other that any mixture of them would lose
something. My point here is that any attempt to distill what we like about
variants into a single game is going to inevitably lose something of what
we like about variants. What I like about variants is too much for one game
to contain, and instead of trying to fit it all into one game, I just
appreciate having a variety of different games.