MTG

I mostly agree with you but have some thoughts.

1. I think is true but that it's WOTC's fault. EDH was the purest when it was a fanmade format that celebrated a way of playing that wasn't baked into off-the-shelf products. It was a way to see an existing card pool differently. But now EDH is no longer just a different way to play Magic but due to the printing of Command-exclusive cards has diverged and essentially become its own game. There are cards that are legal in EDH that were never legal in Regular Magic first. It's a soulless commoditization of essentially house rules.

Hard agree on 2). I don't think I have ever met anyone who has both the social and gaming acumen to have fun with their first game being EDH. IF you're social enough that you're fine being there until the game is over then you probably aren't also a gaming savant who can pick it up for the first time and also have a chance. I think all EDH players ought to maintain healthy expectations by playing 60 card formats alongside 100 card ones but for new players it's a requirement.

For 3) it's undeniable that the board can become a complete mess that takes a minute to resolve whenever anything happens...However I think the solution is to be more engaged with what's going on rather than checking out of the game. When someone else is muddling through their triggers on a storm turn I think it's legitimately more fun to help them track triggers, mana, etc and to try to anticipate exactly what cards or kinds of cards are coming up. I enjoy seeing others puzzle things out so maybe that's what makes watching people play enjoyable for me.

Re: chess clocks. My table has a player who is known for their long turns lost in thought over the best way to drop two mana rocks and pass the turn. I ended up finding and Android app called "Board Game Clock" by SECUSO on F-Droid that supports chess clocks for any arbitrary number of players. I never got to use it because the threat of using it was enough to speed things up a bit.