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Ritch:
| Chess drawing as high as it does at the highest level is a problem.

Yes, it is, but IMO the excess draw rate is due to the large body of
opening theory available, and not intrinsic to the design. Remove the
opening knowledge (something which is desirable for other reasons anyway),
and the problem disappears.

| In regards to the 'variant' phrase, this would be fine for 
| standardized terminology, if it doesn't decide to make Xiangqi fit 
| into this.  Into the larger framework I describe, a 'variant' would
| have consistent terminology and piece names, as other games that are
| considered 'variants'.

Standard naming of pieces would be nice, but even the orthodox pieces
often have multiple names, and of course different names in different
langages. In Dutch, for instance, a Bishop can be called 'Loper'
(runner) or 'Raadsheer' (advisor), a Rook 'Toren' (tower) or
'Kasteel' (castle), a Queen 'Dame' (lady) or 'Koningin' (queen). So
multiple naming is unlikely to go away completely, ever. Even if we would
make recommendations for the most common pieces here, they would still
only be English names, and certainly not being used in other languages. So
I think this is not a realistic requirement to make.

I admit that Xiangqi is a bit of a 'flyer' amongst the Chess variants,
with its zonal board, lack of promotions, and hopper piece. So although it
is definitely a Chess variant in the broader sense, it does not seem crazy
to make a sub-division of the evolutionary tree of Chess into a Western
and Asian 'kingdoms'. (I would classify Shogi as belonging to the
Western kingdom, though.) Witin each ingdom, a major subdivision would
occur between variants with and without piece drops But. although piece
drop have a major impact on the 'feel' of the game, they have little
evolutionary relevance, as vaiants seem to acquire this trait quite easily
and independently in very late stage of their evolution (e.g. Crazyhouse).