I strongly believe in accepting limitations. Limitations of any system I am playing and limitations of my brain/imagination. I see your comment as agreement on this point.
Still, hands can illustrate the obvious: Agreeing to play 2/1 and having no further discussion can then lead to problems. I first learned bridge in 1961 by reading, to borrow your phrase, stone age Goren. We played social bridge, rubber scoring, everyone had read the same book, there was something to be said for this approach. But the past is past.
Some more thoughts:
It cannot be that after 1
then any 2/1 call in a new suit promises five cards. South would have to excuse himself from the table, saying the system does not allow him to bid this hand. But just about everyone plays that 1
- 2
promise five, and it has become fairly popular to have 1
- 2
also promise five. But now imagine South's hand with clubs and diamonds interchanged: T42 / A643 / AK85 / A2. Partner opens 1
and S does what? In complicated sequences sometimes we have to invent a bid on the spot, but this should not be the case for 1
- 2m in a discussed system. The S hand presumably must bid either 2
or 2
and the partnership should agree on which it is. Or, if they start this with 1NT (not a system I would want to play) they need to agree on what happens next.
A fairly common approach is to allow the 2
call to be a catchall. After 1
- 2
opener will not raise to 3
unless he has four. Of course four won't always be enough, but responder then clarifies. If the 2
was not really on a club suit of any note then he presumably either has three spades and bids 3
or he has enough in red cards so that he can bid 3NT.
Playing this way it would seem that after 1
- 2
then opener might be wary of bidding a splinter 3
, although it could be ok, perhaps, if they agree that after the 3
a call by responder of either 3
or 3NT is an announcement that the 2
is not to be taken seriously.
Still on the subject of agreements, I am confident that I can find literature with 1
- 2
-3
treated as a strong 5-5. The auction 1
-2
-2
does not then deny 5-5, opener can later rebid 3
also showing 5-5, the difference is in the strength of the suits. The direct 3
being bid with stronger suits.
I am not advocating any particular agreement here. The idea of the post was to illustrate that simply agreeing to play 2/1 is often insufficient.
In Todd's thread on Bridge World quizzes I noted that BW has a glowing review of a new Kit Woolsey book. I think KW is good at finding and clarifying various ambiguities. I might well buy it. And perhaps even read it! A favorite skit on some tv show: A woman was saying that she had joined a health club and it hadn't done her a bit of good. "Apparently you also have to go", she explained.