Good topic and mostly civil discussion...I applaud that.
One of the funniest subplots of a movie came in the movie, "Bang the Drum Slowly" with a young DeNiro as a Yankees catcher. There was a group of players in the lobby playing a card game called "TEGWAR". Newbies in the lobby wanted to hang with the players so they'd join in the game without knowing the rules.
They quickly lost their money because TEGWAR was an acronym for "The Endless Game Without Any Rules". These newbies would drop down their money and cards...pretend to know what they were doing, and then be beaten in their hands by hands like a "purple hooter" or whatever name the experienced guys would make up.
In that, I sympathize with the newbies not having a set of rules and then having to jump from one set to another when going from league to tournament...needing weighted figures for one and then unweighted stock figures for things like the NHFL. It'd be nice.
At the same time, our hobby isn't big enough to tolerate splinters that a uniform rule set would cause. Guys have been playing a certain way for so long in their pockets of this country that a uniform rule set would only serve to give one more reason for them not joining the cause of the MFCA which is simply to promote the game in all its intricacies and pecularities.
I've always said that a significant vendor investment with a large cash tournament or two would accomplish much more uniformity. I don't think it can be accomplished from the bottom up, but instead the top down (man I sound like a republican George...ugh). Put $20,000 as a prize and you can bet that guys would be working on perfecting that system and set of rules pretty quickly. Why play too differently from that set of rules when your compatriots are getting practice with the rules that will make you $ in the end?
If money wouldn't work, then just promise a date with Miss MFCA if they win the tournament...that'd probably get everyone to adopt the same set of rules
Keep up the great work MFCA.