I can see why illiquidity is a feature in startup equity. The noise of constant price action combined with the actual volatility of a startup would be so unproductive

The illiquidity is also super annoying for early employees with shitty founders who find themselves in a situation where they need tens of thousands to exercise options or lose all value of their time/opportunity investment.

Liquid equity would mean that founders/investors would have less power.  That’s not a terrible thing.

Absolutely. Complete distraction, makes you wonder what other games could exist with tokens using timelocks or time-delayed trades or something else to create similar effects.