Whither the Warlord Traits

When going through the steps leading to turn one of a game, I'm seeing in our group the most derided and unenthusiastic step to be the roll for Warlord Traits. There hasn't yet been a documented case of a Warlord Trait being used for advantage in my group. While this is only anecdotal and people are probably using their warlord skills to great effect somewhere out there, it is consistent with other similar rules I have tried using.

In writing up the original Rules of Engagement update for 5th Edition I did with a co-worker, I added unique conditions, a set of wholly optional rules to theoretically spice up a generic game. Rules would modify run/charge distances for example. The problem quickly became the additional scenario rules felt more a nuisance than a benefit. They were left in the rule set, but abandoned in play, never used again.

I ignored this lesson as I wrote up an expansion of the Rules of Engagement concept to give games more of a campaign feel without the campaign extension. Each player's objective came with a USR or special rule benefit that narratively supported the goal. Again, in play these benefits often were ignored or forgotten.

The problem comes from the necessity of not overpowering these benefits. They need to be useful in some way, but not in a way they confer a distinct advantage to one player over another. But since they confer no distinct advantage their usefulness is suspect. This is exacerbated by the random roll to determine your benefit. So even if one or two of the Warlord Traits is useful, the odds do not favor you getting them.

How could this be fixed?

The random roll of the Trait is in line with the 6th Edition philosophy which seems to favor the uncertainty of the dice roll. So hiding a useful Trait among the 6 you can roll fits the edition, but does it add to the game or subtract from it? I'd suggest neither which is why my group still makes the roll but inevitably ignores the result. Removing the die roll and allowing a trait to be chosen addresses this problem, but creates a new one in the fact the USRs handed down by these Traits don't affect each army equally and can be cherry picked to suit who you are fighting that game. It changes from a trait of your HQ model to a "how can I best beat opponent X?"

Could we modify the dice roll to favor generic traits and make more unusual traits harder to roll? Change the table to a 2d6 roll and the the distribution of results becomes more predictable. This doesn't make traits more consistently useful.

Ultimately, given the power to change the rulebook, I think I would move the Warlord Traits into fluff/optional rules. Maybe tailor them to each race. More likely though, I'd wash my hands of it as a bad idea and cut it from the game.