Allowing the King to defuse atomic bombs?

Well, I'm definitely against suddenly changing the rules of a variant where a lot of players already have established knowledge, experience and, most importantly, rating. Plus, a lot of people seem to like the current rules, so why fix it if isn't broken? I guess it could appear as an option when creating an atomic game / tournament, however it's unclear to me how ratings would then work.

@MessyAnswer O_RLY? 1. Nf3 a6 2. Ne5

@rdaysky Ah, I forgot that knight explosions still work. Still, a move like 1. .. d5 would be sufficient in this variant (and 1. .. e5 2. Ng5 f5 would be perfectly fine for black too). I actually think it might be very interesting to try this out because it seems to make the game a lot less forced, giving white less advantage and allowing players to use more varied opening books.

d5 allows Nxh7, e5 just lets a very pesky knight in which is a great advantage in subsequent rook battles (or if black plays Nf6, wins a pawn with Ng5-e6). So this variant may make the game even more forced in this line or in some of the others.

Current rules are perfect, why change them ?

This is an interesting suggestion. The opening will certainly be a little less constrained (although there's already quite a lot to explore) and the middlegame tactics will be different, for instance piece invasions will need to be relooked.

It completely changes the endgame though, depending on whether kings can still touch or not (I think not, and it'll thus resemble normal chess - a pity to lose atomic endgame theory!)

Interesting idea with some drawbacks (indeed, losing endgame theory would be sad :/). Another idea I had but changing a lot opening play : just exchange places of rooks and knights. Seems to level the game but I don't like it too much (maybe better to exchange knights and bishops ?!). I'd still like to test the "no knight move up to move 3" rule :)