The queen is absolutely an inelegance from a rules perspective.  That seems to be kind of the point:  rules elegance is neither necessary or sufficient to create a good game (though, arguably, it helps:  see Go).  Having a single piece with far more offensive power than any other is interesting, which is good in actual gameplay.<p>The queen is absolutely the wrong thing to pick on, though.  Castling would be an obvious example, but my go-to is <i>En passant</i>.  The pawn double-move is obviously inelegant (sharing the problem with castling that it may only ever be a piece&#x27;s first move), but it inarguably makes the game better.  If you&#x27;ve ever tried playing without it, you know that it makes the opening both faster and more interesting.<p>However, the pawn double-move introduces a strategic problem where a pawn can sometimes skip past another.  The <i>en passant</i> rule is thus introduced as an obvious fix for that bug.<p>It would be problematic to have either of these rules without the other, and neither is particularly elegant, but the combination improves the game a lot.<p>See also:  the infield fly rule in Baseball, the shot clock in any sport that has a shot clock, I&#x27;m sure anyone can name several more.