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Well, even FIDE Chess violates the defining characteristics, by the
non-Chess-like moves of castling and e.p. capture. But, like I stated,
violation of some of the rules does not immediately disqualify a game as a
CV. Extinction Chess doesn't have a royal piece, but in all other respects
it is identical to FIDE Chess. So it is clearly a CV.

But I would not call checkers or draughts CVs. In the interpretation that
the chips are pawns, (they do promote...), the capture mode and piece
variety is too different from common variants to qualify.

I do not consider Ultima / Baroque a Chess variant. It does have piece
variety, and even a royal piece, but the capture modes are too alien, only
the King has a Chess-like capture, most pieces don't.

I see no problem with Jacks and Witches. The majority of the pieces are
normal Chess pieces. OK, so some Witch moves violate the one-at-a-time
rule, like castling does. No problem, as even within this game this is an
exception.

IMO the array is not relevant as a distinctive trait of variants. You
could call them sub-variants at best. Near Chess is simply FIDE Chess. The
opening position of Near Chess occurs even in the game tree of FIDE Chess.
In that respect FRC is more different from FIDE Chess than Near Chess is:
there at least the opening position can be unreachable frrom the FIDE
opening.