Honestly the broken version sounds more fun. Sometimes house rules beat the real rules.

Did your table ever get stuck in that weird place where everyone is too annoyed to play good but too stubborn to quit? We had almost the same thing last month. My wife had 9 points and just needed one more city, then I rolled a 7 and parked the robber on her only brick hex. She went totally silent for like 20 minutes and nobody would trade with anyone after that. What killed me was we played another two hours and the whole time it felt like we were just going through the motions. We finally called it a draw at midnight and sat in the kitchen eating chips for another half hour just venting about it.

Had a buddy who did the same thing with a daily energy drink for like two years... swore he was bulletproof, then one random Tuesday his heart started racing at his desk and the doc told him his BP was through the roof. The scary part is the damage doesn't show up in how you feel day to day, it builds up quiet and then all hits at once. Your 700 days of data is cool and all, but it's measuring the wrong thing, man.