Considering the opening lines, I was thinking of making a more serious suggestion to the GDC.
What if:
The game was pre-released, in bits and pieces, to a group of now-largely-uninvolved FIRST alumni to be checked for obvious loopholes, conflicts, and questions before Kickoff?
Here’s my thought: A group of individuals, known only to the GDC, and not to anyone else, inside or outside of the group, bound by NDAs (much like field builders are), could each get one full sub-section of the Game Manual, such as 7.3.1.2 (I’m making up numbers here), say, along with any rules/definitions that are referenced in that section in the form of “<G123> says that thou shalt not throw game item 3 over field item O to put it in play, but may use any perforations in item O”, and NOTHING else. (Game item 3 and field item O are left undefined.)
The group, individually, goes through their assigned subsections and notes any questions that they may have, such as “What is protected on both sides of a corner? Is it sticking out or one segment per side?”. The questions are then fed back to the GDC and solutions implemented pre-Kickoff, so that the questions either don’t arise or are simply referred to the manual. For example, with the example question, a simple fix would have been “Protected on each side by a bumper segment” or “Each corner shall have one bumper segment on each side” before the Kickoff, instead of several dozen questions asking “What does protected on both sides of a corner mean?” for two weeks after Kickoff.
In essence, this group would function as a subset of teams, and ask the questions the teams to to highlight the issues that the GDC may not be able to see, as the GDC knows their intent much better than any team does and may overlook a simple statement that would clarify the intent to the teams.
I am not saying that this is a good idea, or that the GDC is doing a lousy job (on the contrary, I think Lunacy is one of the best games in years). I am saying that maybe we can help them do a better job of finding issues that may arise before they arise, if they request the help.