No-stalemate format


I mostly agree. Also this would make it much harder to draw by insufficient material, since for example you can stalemate with just K + P vs K or K+N vs K, K + B vs K, etc (no idea if it can be forced).
Technicality here: you don't necessarily need the king to be under any sort of threat for a stalemate to occur, just that you have no legal moves. In principle this can occur even when the board is full of pieces but they're all blocking each other. For example: black to move and force a draw:

Of course, if someone sensible had made the rules of the game, the stalemate would have been a win, and there probably wouldn't even have been a castling rule. The rules of chess were created spontaneously and other versions of chess (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, original Arabic and Indian) consider stalemate a win. The same is true for checkers, for example.