On the gaming front I and others from the group have been thinking of ways to consolidate our rules so as to spend more time gaming and less time reading. We game once or twice a month and so it can be quite sometime in between games and so we often forget the rules and have to re-read things.
Black Powder I think is a great choice as a default rule set as it's easy to learn and collect for and is pretty fun. Sure, you will probably find period specific rule sets that are better, but that comes with a cost of having to re-learn them over and over again unless you virtually only play one period. Since we like a variety of periods using black powder weapons it seems wise to use a more all purpose rule set where you need not worry about reading the rules before and during games.
Ancients is bit more difficult as we have Armatti and Impetus camps(I love Impetus, but others are put off by all the errata). We have yet to try Hail Caesar so I'm hopeful everyone will like it so we can move to a consensus on something.
Skirmish is difficult to have one default rule set, but we are looking at trying to focus one to each period which will help.
Perhaps it's our age? where we are looking less for the newest and coolest rules, but the easiest way we can get our toys on the table and play.