Whoa, this discussion is still going?
I understand your frustration since I’ve agreed with you from the beginning. In fairness to AcesWild, it looks like he has mostly accepted the same understanding of the game’s balance that we’ve been saying all along over the course of these past, what, two years? He’s been willing to change his perspective which is more than many people do. So I commend him for that. And even for his painstaking journey of internalising and understanding the balance for himself rather than just taking our word for it.
But what remains is the fact that he is still opposed to a bid. And I guess that’s just a matter of what you are looking for in a game: I’d rather have a game that is more equitable regardless of historical accuracy, whereas some people might prefer a fixed game that is still as balanced as possible. I prefer the bid because it allows disagreements of balance to automatically be resolved by whoever is willing to bid the least. Whereas I think AcesWild is going to have a tough journey selling his recommended fixes to anything more than a handful of people he knows just because he doesn’t have the reach of people who will pay attention to him, but for those people, maybe it salvages a great game.