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The nightrider is an interesting-enough piece, but if it's the best we can do, it shows a serious lack of imagination. Basically, it's forcing the knight into the same mold as the other non-royal pieces in modern western chess, and it becomes a sort of chimera, a 'leaping infinite slider'. The one piece on the modern board with a unique character, and it's being twisted into line with the other pieces, standardized into a linear slider. Horsefeathers! ;-) The knight has 2 characteristics, not just one, and the nightrider amplifies one and ignores the other. Not only does the knight jump, but it 'moves crooked' - it approaches the linear sliders from an angle they can't attack. This compensates for its slow move. The nightrider doesn't have the slow move, but it keeps the oblique approach, which is why its value is so relatively high. But if the height of imagination for the mainstream is to take the knight's move and stick it on every other piece in the game, including the other knight, well, I'm glad I'm on the fringes.