I think it is a shame to remove this feature (unless that's beneficial in some background coding way). It isn't used much, but BM does not suffer from too many features or too many options, so having less wouldn't help.
And with all due respect page2 does not hold as many interesting suggestions for family gold as may seem.
Running investments on a regular basis. Which can be a tremendous benefit to any realm.
That may be true, but they are not much fun, nor are they of much benefit to my character (except for certain amount of bragging rights of being a major investor).
Using family gold to ransom yourself out of jail. Not sure how exactly it works, but it could basically be a 'get out of jail unbanned' card.
This one is not true. The family gold option appears on the 3rd day as opposed to the ransom out with cash (if you have enough) that appears on the 2nd day. So it will be a full day later and double the amount. The extra cost would make sense if you could do more with it but you can only do less --- it will not protect you from a ban since ransoming out with cash is available a day sooner.
Fame points.
True, but I think this is one time only. I am pretty sure the family fame will not drop if you spent the fortune.
Getting financial aid from your family
This had been capped so that poor characters who need the gold can't get much (30 gold). Mind you, the uncapped system was disbalancing, so capping was a right thing to do. But since only the wealthy contributors (who typically don't need it) can get significant amounts of gold now, I think it is nearly useless now.
- Buying family influence for equipment repairs and entertainment in foreign, non-allied realms.
- Placing a bounty on someone with family gold.
- Moving your family home. (Doesn't that take some gold form you, and some from your family?)
- Higher starting gold for your new characters.
These are true, but as has been pointed out don't require a lot of wealth or cost much.
Personally, I have been looking forward to making a risky bid and attempting buying a region for a while (haven't tried it yet, the circumstances weren't right). So it'd be a shame to remove it for no compelling reason. Of course the rigged election idea is a much better mechanism and would be awesome to have. However, it also sounds non-trivial, so what are the chances that it will get implemented instead?