Single Comment

Rich:
| By the way, the issue I see with Superchess is that it s a 
| proprietary product, that doesn't get enough exposure, and I 
| personally find the pieces far too confusng.  Nice idea, but it 
| is set up where it won't spread and get needed exposure.

I am not sure we are talking bout the same form of Superchess, then. AFAIK 
for the version I was referring to, only the name is protected as trademark,
which apparently is is pretty poor protection, considering the number of
variants listed here that have the same name. :-)))

Of course it is to people like us to give it the exposure it needs.
Superchess is not a commercial endeavor, and I would be very surprised if
the person behind it would mind to get more exposure.

But I was not mentioning Superchess because I think te exact rules 
described in the booklet make it the ultimate variant. I only mentioned it
because of the aspect which seems to address the opening-book problem: 
picking pieces from a larger list. I think this is a vey useful general
mechanism, offering the possibility to have the players do this in a
controlled way, which protects the quality of the initial position. It has
some desirable properties that alternatives like gating or dropping re
missing. There is no danger of overcrowding, the players don't have to
worry about the very specific tactical possibilities that piece drops
introduce in the game, and the complexity (and duration) of any single
game is not different from what tey are used to.