Dude. The free parking pot is one of the most WIDELY held rules in Monopoly, even if they may not be in the rule books. Pretty much everyone plays it that way. Just like how the "no outside discussion" rule is one of the most WIDELY held rules in Mafia (online or otherwise). So yeah, both rules are there to make the game more interesting and fun.

You seem so hell bent on thinking that this version (the widely held, most popular way to play the game) is gonna suck without ever having tried it. I've looked over a bunch of online versions of this game from various forums and all of them have the limited discussion rule and all the players still seem to have a lot of fun.

So chill out. Try it this way. If you're so stuck on thinking there's only one fun way to play this game, then you're probably not gonna have any fun at all. Self-fulfilling prophesy and all that junk.

EDIT: Del Murder and I went over the game configuration to try and make sure that it'll be a fun interesting game, and we're not even asking that much. Just try it this way and see how it goes. And you know, as people hosting the game, it's totally uncool to us that people are saying that this is the un-fun way to play the game, or that this round is gonna suck, or whatever before the game even begins and the players even give it a TRY. Gosh. *shakes head*