I am sure that most board gamers either have or will come across this article by Yehuda. I think it deserves a quick post though to make sure it does get around. It has been a long time since I read a blog article that made me think , and imagine the possibilities, about how I would apply this to my life. This is a great article. The basic premise is that we now know enough about different and modern game mechanics to apply them to old games. Imagine playing a game of Monopoly where each turn you bid for turn order, and you had a secret set of orders you were trying to complete for bonus money at the end of the game (perhaps collect all of the railroads). The game might still be long, and could still be fairly boring, but it would be much different. I think the game would be more fun though.
It does not have to stop there. Yehuda has presented a large number of different mechanics which could be adapted to breath new life into pretty much any game. His article is worth a read by anyone who has ever played any board or card game.
I think it would be amazingly fun to encourage people to pick a game, write up a quick variant, post it to their blog or Board Game Geek. See what kinds of variation people can come up with. Perhaps this already exists somewhere, related to the books mentioned at the end of the article, but I will start thinking on the idea, pull out some of my old games, and see if I can not put a new spin on them.