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George, thank you for taking the time to look over and rate the game, and provide some history. Since this is an experimental game and, like all my experimental games, is deliberately loaded down with excess baggage, I ccertainly can't dispute the rating, especially as I haven't played it yet. But I do wish to push all those pieces around a bit to see how they work. And you did say as a game, this might be average, so might be worth trying out. Still, it's cluttered with a whole bunch of new or unusual pieces of different styles that have little history of working together this way on a small [8x8] board. That unfamiliarity hurts its initial playability. It's a fault of mine. I get lazy and make one test game do extra testing.

:-) If you followed my work, you wouldn't need to ask 'why 4'. 
It's all part of a master plan... 
or at least an attempt to stretch chess in some new directions. I need piercing and grasping organs for chesimals as a next step in their evolution. Also '4' is at the edge of short range and getting to medium range. This is an area I'm starting to look at. While I like leapers for short range, sliders can be very nice medium range pieces, and I expect them to compete with some of the extended versions of my favorite short range pieces. The bishopy and rookish pieces are the prototypes for what I hope develops into a series of useful medium range basically linear pieces.   Thank you for asking, and giving me the opportunity to mention some goals. :-)
Enjoy,
Joe