Bram: I think that your "Straights and Queers" game can be formulated differently and in a way that makes it clearer that both players actually are equivalent to each other. Consider it as "North&South" versus "East&West", and pieces capture clockwise (or anticlockwise, if you prefer). This is equivalent to the game as you described, but avoids the political / social baggage of the terminology, and also the apparent (but illusory) asymmetry between the two players.

Your diary got me thinking about whether my proposed game could be played in a simultaneous-move mode, and I think it could. You'd just need some dispute-resolution rules. I think these rules would be sufficient:

• A move must be legal in the state of the board at the beginning of the turn - you can't attempt a move in "hope" that the space needed becomes free.
• If two pieces "advance" into the same space, neither piece is placed in that space. This is not considered a capture and neither player gains points for it. An "advance" move, per the rules, involves placing a piece in two separate spaces: these two placings are treated independently. Either way, the piece that attempted the advance is still removed. Thus if both the spaces are contested, the pieces making the advance disappear entirely.
• If the target of an "attack" moves out of the way at the same time, the attack move is "successful" but the piece is not considered captured, and the move out of the way is successful also. One particular example of this rule is if an OOXX line exists and both players attack simultaneously - the line becomes OXOX and neither player is credited with a capture.

I'm hoping to put together some kind of html-based implementation of this game - once I get the alternating-play mode working, I might try to get the simultaneous one working too...