... the fact that the rankings could refer to friendly pieces is a rather dubious piece of evidence for allowing jump-captures of royals.
The point is that it makes no sense at all to make a rule that forbids jumping over an enemy King, while allowing its capture. For this reason I always considered the fact that the King was mentioned in the general's ranking as evidence that it must be there for forbidding its capture. (Even though this caused a very nasty inconsistency in the rules, as capture of generals of equal or higher rank are allowed.) This reasoning was flawed, however: the rule could also have been added for preventing generals to jump over their own King. That it would at the same time forbid jumping over the enemy King would not be relevant, as no one in his right mind would want to do that anyway.
The evidence in favor of allowing capture is that the King appears in the ranking without further comment, suggesting it is treated as its rank would suggest, but not special otherwise. The evidence to the contrary now seems to have evaporated. The weakness you mention can in fact be trivially defended; no AI is necessary to to find that, and the 'quick attack' was standard theory from the very beginning. Its main line doesn't provide a very large advantage, though, as it doesn't win in just a few moves, and when sente runs out of steam, gote can mirror its play for a counter attack. This also has been known from the early days.
The smothered mate indeed is the main theme of all openings. It is the only way in which the jumping generals can combat a Fire Demon, and makes Demon sacrifices for 2 or 3 generals (including the GG) playable: in the end the side with the generals can force the opponent to give the Demon back. Otherwise the value of a Demon is close to infinity. It is really a very interesting game that way, and certainly doesn't fuel any reasoning of the kind "they cannot have intended this".
The point is that it makes no sense at all to make a rule that forbids jumping over an enemy King, while allowing its capture. For this reason I always considered the fact that the King was mentioned in the general's ranking as evidence that it must be there for forbidding its capture. (Even though this caused a very nasty inconsistency in the rules, as capture of generals of equal or higher rank are allowed.) This reasoning was flawed, however: the rule could also have been added for preventing generals to jump over their own King. That it would at the same time forbid jumping over the enemy King would not be relevant, as no one in his right mind would want to do that anyway.
The evidence in favor of allowing capture is that the King appears in the ranking without further comment, suggesting it is treated as its rank would suggest, but not special otherwise. The evidence to the contrary now seems to have evaporated. The weakness you mention can in fact be trivially defended; no AI is necessary to to find that, and the 'quick attack' was standard theory from the very beginning. Its main line doesn't provide a very large advantage, though, as it doesn't win in just a few moves, and when sente runs out of steam, gote can mirror its play for a counter attack. This also has been known from the early days.
The smothered mate indeed is the main theme of all openings. It is the only way in which the jumping generals can combat a Fire Demon, and makes Demon sacrifices for 2 or 3 generals (including the GG) playable: in the end the side with the generals can force the opponent to give the Demon back. Otherwise the value of a Demon is close to infinity. It is really a very interesting game that way, and certainly doesn't fuel any reasoning of the kind "they cannot have intended this".