ChessVariant: I sure wouldn't mind a fellowship devoted to play-testing variants (whether just invented or already "established"--in the sense that rules are fairly well agreed-upon--even if there's no current implementation of the game here.)  For such a fellowship, members ought to be disciplined--that is to say, I'd hope for members who will follow through...when they say they're willing to play a variant (by email, I suppose), they'll be likely to finish what they begin, will move at better then a snail's pace, and have the organizational skills to keep track of positions of games in progress.

Unlike you, my preferences in variants tends toward smaller departures from traditional western chess.  I tend to prefer the standard set of pieces, moving in the traditional manner.

But I enjoy different starting positions (fischerrandom), different means of determining the moves to be made (compromise, dice), different goals of the game (castle chess), departures from the traditional white-black-white-black order of moves (progressive), or less-than-perfect information about the board position (dark).