recruiting is the most dull time? now, thats the first ive heard that argument! d1 recruiting remains one of the key attractions of the game, so i don't think your comment there is typical of the community at large. that said, i do agree to some extent that its the time people are most engaged in the game, and thus, the time most natural to talk. and further, that the "no talking" (unspoken) rule does put a damper on things - just not to the extent you are suggesting.
i also disagree that everybody follows it and has no idea why. i think most of us understand why, irrespective of our individual abilities to articulate those reasons. the reason is generally, in my opinion, two fold - the first is to protect the normal players, "casual players" if you will, as well as semi serious and even "hardcore" users who dont want recruiting strategy to be predicated on communication between users. the reality is a lot of people, like yourself, would like this kind of communication to be a part of recruiting strategy, to banter, make real threats, bluffs, etc... however, a lot of coaches do not want to do those things to be part of it. these kinds comments made, even when innocent in intent, do have a material impact on the recruiting session of others. if everybody was doing it, its fair to everyone, generally speaking, in the long run at least. but if only some people do it, and others are not comfortable (not everyone will say, to use fd's example, "xxx starting a battle with me, while you also have battles with yyy and qqq - no way you can succeed" - knowing the impact on the other coach) - then its simply not fair. a lot of users are casual and want to just do their own thing, not have all this aggression in recruiting on the communication side. given that this would be unfair, those users, in the long run, would most likely not really be a significant part of the equation - but they are too important of a part of the HD base to exclude. i have *nothing* against a hardcore recruiting world where this kind of behavior is allowed, but i am strongly against it in normal worlds, partly for this reason.
the second reason has to do with the slipperiness of the slope. how do you draw the line between "xxx starting a battle with me, while you also have battles with yyy and qqq - no way you can succeed", and "xxx starting a battle with me, im going to spend a **** ton, other people should take advantage", and "hey zzz lets both battle xxx, no way he can beat us both". it seems to me, you quickly descend into chaos. kmason, its possible there is a set of CLEAR AND CONCISE guidelines that could govern this communication. but, i personally dont see it. id be more than interested to hear your argument for why 1) it wont descend into chaos, 2) it doesnt matter if it does, or 3) that there is a set of guidelines we could use. i think any argument among those lines would be an interesting read :)