Minecraft - Figured out some rules, finally

So for the longest time I've been trying to figure out how to play the game and keep it interesting. Simply not using armor or wood swords is just stupid in my opinion because you're essentially limiting your ability to play the game. Coming up with collection objectives is ok but in the end it's just building up a score that I don't really care about either. No the problem is that I needed to figure out a way to keep building the world around me, but with purpose because making a bunch of buildings with no purpose just seems pointless, to me anyway. So I figured out a way to play hardcore, but not lose everything that I had done previous in the process.

I'm doing this with the world that I've been playing for about a week so it's not perfect, but oh well. With the game set on hard I'm using my starter house as kind of the nexus to the world. Since I haven't died yet I can still use it and build on it, but once I die that ends. When I die I will do the following:

1) Respawn
2) Collect 20 pieces of obsidian, two stone picks, two stone shovels, stack of torches, flint& tinder (basically items needed to make it through the nether.
3) Once I've gotten myself lost in the nether, form a portal and reenter the overworld.
4) At that point I close the portal with the extra obsidian that I have with me, locking me into the new location, yes I can get back, but I wouldn't.
5) Play like normal until I can reopen the portal with a new diamond pickaxe. But don't go through.
6) Once I've opened the portal back up, I'm free to try and locate the starting point, obviously having a compass will help in that endeavor, considering that I can already use the portal it's more about the principle of finding it rather than just going back.
7) Once I've refound the spawn point, I am free to use it's materials just like before, essentially it's a found town.
8) Each of the little settlements that I have will have a flag on top of them to indicate what player they were built on, starting is Red, second will be Orange, then Yellow, etc along the rainbow.
9) Finally I can establish a rail line between the overworld bases, but not in the nether.

Other rules
1) All structures must be above ground, no digging into cliffs to make a home.
2) Mob grinders are fine.
3) Bases have to be connected overland, but once connected to the nexus are free to use.
4) Structures must be built in the area around the current main base, once a death happens on one area that area is set, but the items there are free to be used.

I think that this makes the game ongoing but interesting so that there are consequences for death, but the world stays alive. We'll have to see how it plays out, considering that I rarely die, it might not work anyway.

Another thought is to just do it and see how it plays out. I might do that after I finish up the last of the caves under starter island, just to mix it up.