I can still draft and sign treaties in testing. Only the treaty friction has been removed.
And, well, unit behaviour doesn't follow the treaties yet, so it's not really useful at the moment except as an in-game record of texts. But it is there.
Friction was the biggest irritant of the new system. Rulers not being able to sign their own stuff was an irritant for small realms as well. I think people were mostly satisfied with everything else... If the old system didn't require maintenance for relations, why should the new one?
