Personally, I think that the "improved rules" idea is good, but sub-optimal. Beyond the removing-death bit (which removes the ridiculous, arbitrary, too-short time limit), it seems like making further modifications to reality would make the game too easy, as it were. I'm not sure how I'd feel about the idea that I was only able to steer the Future where I wanted because I was being handed an easier ruleset, it feels a bit like being stuck in a playpen. Safer and easier, maybe, but less like reality.
I don't ordinarily leave comments, but I wanted to point out one specific thing. You did, at least partially, reach your original target of elementary school students with "An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes Theorem". (Well, I suppose, middle school students.) I read that essay for the first time when I was very young, and it - along with all the other essays on this blog - gave me an excellent foundation in the areas I chose later to focus on, cognitive psychology and machine learning.
I didn't think about writing you a grateful email at the time, for a variety of reasons, the least of which being I didn't have an email address. I'm still not going to do that, since I'm waiting to send you an email until I've put together an application for a software development position at MIRI - something I've been working for since I first read HPMOR and fell in love with rationality. But I did want to say something, because I belatedly realized I've never actually done it, so here's that. Thanks, sensei.
Mysteriousness is a cult, and I am running on condescending.