The problem with the old dueling circuits and guilds was that they (ab)used the dueling-for-honor mechanics. using these for the purposes of recreation was never intended.
There was enough popular demand for the feature, that eventually the need for something to handle it was pretty clear. It took some convincing, but we finally were able to convince Tom to let us add the training matches. You'll notice that there are some significant differences between training matches and real duels, though.
