"It is fair to assume that in a realistic scenario, games which nobody likes are not present."
Why not? Are those games not fun? No, of course they are fun. They just don't support the fun that that group wants to have. The fact that games that the group doesn't like aren't there says that system does in fact matter. It's just that in a "realistic scenario" most of the weeding out has already been done.
As far as spending 40 minutes planning a board-game choice, sure, that sounds unreasonable. Unless, that is, I'm going to be playing that same board game every week for a year (like many RPGs). Yes, I can probably get by on whatever game, but given the choice, why not take what amounts to a relatively small amount of time making sure that I'm picking the best option? It's a matter of degrees.
Re: System doesn't matter much
Why not? Are those games not fun? No, of course they are fun. They just don't support the fun that that group wants to have. The fact that games that the group doesn't like aren't there says that system does in fact matter. It's just that in a "realistic scenario" most of the weeding out has already been done.
As far as spending 40 minutes planning a board-game choice, sure, that sounds unreasonable. Unless, that is, I'm going to be playing that same board game every week for a year (like many RPGs). Yes, I can probably get by on whatever game, but given the choice, why not take what amounts to a relatively small amount of time making sure that I'm picking the best option? It's a matter of degrees.