A little while ago, I was talking to Bobby Chamberlain about this...
we both had the same thought at different times.
It takes virtually NOTHING to get a neutral racker. No time invested, no money invested.
There are plenty of fans who would be willing to rack for FREE, if you just let them stand somewhere close to the action and sweat the match. And a 9 year old can do it with the MBR.
Neither player can ever be neutral so we'll always be having this debate.
Only a third party can fix it. I still think magic rack on the spot is very hard to 'game' but with a third party you go from 98% argument-free to 100%.
Paul's right to question the idea of mandatory pushout. It ruins some of the entertainment value. In
buddy's article someone recently linked, it sounds like texas express was born because rollouts slowed everything down and were dull to watch.
Break'n'runs are part of the pool collective consciousness. They're just too ingrained, they're what fans expect and want and you will get no traction trying to reverse that trend.
Unfortunately, the same argument can be used against no-conflict rules. Nobody will ever consider a break-dry-and-run a true runout. It feels like letting a golfer drive once, then sink the ball on his second shot, and labelling it a hole-in-one.
Paul, you've asked how no conflict could be gamed... I think the main concern is, players will simply soft break to guarantee a look at the 1. Already guys like shane can hit a ball warp speed and somehow his 1 ball ends up in the same 2 square foot area over and over. Let him hit 11 mph with no penalty for a dry break. He might literally go ten racks before an unlucky roll clusters up 2 balls in a way that prevents the runout.