Herlock Sholmes: Before deciding whether or not to have a go at a particular chess variant, I think a player might ask the age old question : "What is in it for me?" In this case the answer may need to involve some personal satisfaction, stretching of the mind, the probability of being able to play some more games in order to build on lessons learnt, and eventually some practical reward such as a public rating, a medal, or even some money.
For this to happen, there have to be enough people involved, of a sufficiently high chess standard, who all think the variant is of high enough quality to make it worth playing more and more games. This has already happened to some extent on this site with some chess variants, which must be a good thing.
Would it help if some grandmasters got involved? I am not so sure it would.