@Arthur-Bomber-Harris is speaking succinctly, and speaking for most of us,
We want to preserve the base ruleset as much as we can and if a player wants some modification and the other doesn’t, then the default is the actual out of the box rules. This has been agreed upon as a higher priority, so that OOB players interested in league can jump right in, and current or departing league players can seamlessly play OOB outside the league.
Bidding definitely creates the opportunity for more chaos and cheese, and of course any bid is a modification of the game start, but it is not changing any mechanics or rules of play after game start. If a player doesn’t like 40+ bids, he should propose alternatives to his opponent, who will often be agreeable.
This is where you can say, hey, let’s reduce German NO’s from 5 to 3 and then the bidding can be lower. In my latest game, after bidding started I realized I wanted to know where his bid was going to be, so I revealed mine and asked if he’d reveal his. Then I knew I wasn’t going to face a starting placement I wouldn’t like. So you can get creative with your opponent, but when you don’t agree, out of box rules are your fallback.
The default league rules are not effectively a restriction or a hindrance, they are a safeguard that protects players from being expected to play something other than out of the box, when they just want to play out of the box.
Pretty much total freedom is given to two players who want to doctor up any crazy modifications of out of the box they want, and the game will still be counted in out of the box league play, which is very lenient. Conceivably even a small band of players could be playing in OOB league play with all their unconventional rules, but as soon as they want to play someone else in the league who doesn’t want those rules, the league rules protect the “normal” player.
