Grandpakim,
I can totally understand your position. I just feel that this tournament is different enough that the rules should be slightly different.
I don't know how many of you are fans of the "Survivor" Television series. I am slightly ashamed to asy I am thouroughly addicted to it. And that dynamic of constantly shifting alegiances is what I was trying to capture with teh first Survivor tourney. I didn't feel like I captured it quite right, but I think this one comes a bit closer.
Personally I won't bother trying to make any pre arranged alliances. But mostly because I just don't thenk they are practical. It makes more sense to find a few players close to you in the quadrant and band together in my opinion.
But the fact is with 35+ players in the tournament it would be nearly impossible to get a set of rules that everybody likes 100%. So then my objective becomes what is practical, and what can be enforced. I don't want to have to mediate a bunch of disputes, or try to decide whether or not someone was emailing before they met in the game. So I take the easy way out and allow it.
There are already a couple good players I know of that I wish would join but aren't because they don't like the format. That's ok. I will miss having them, but that's their decision.
I would not hold it against you if you chose not to play. But if you choose to play I think you will find that those pre-arranged alliances aren't as good as the people think they are going to be. One thing that was proven time and time again in Survivor 1 was that your alliance is only as good as the weakest player in it.
Geoschmo