It is my impression that DDC 10 is in general the "magic number". A lot of actions are not attempted at all unless you can take 10 and if you have to take an action you want to reduce it to 2+.
If this is not intentional, then something has to be changed.
I do not think that simply removing Take 10 is a solution though, it would remove the magic number issue, but I think it would hurt the game as is.
Actions represent a huge investment, in time (you at most have 5 regent actions), RP, and GB. Since the investments into actions are that big, people are naturally very risk-averse since those 5 actions are all that you get to do that turn and you have finite resources (quite limited resources in some players' cases).
If you succeed at an action you get what you wanted (usually) if you fail you get nothing at all, for some actions there is even a risk of the situation getting worse (agitate, notably).
Couple that together with the fact that a turn's actions are the result of a month's roleplaying and wheeling and dealing, you get risk-averse behavior.
Is this a problem? If it is, something has to be done...
I'm just not sure what to suggest.
One thing to do would be to reduce the resources risked (e.g. on a failed action you get half the resources you invested back, still a loss, but not as painful). This could lead to a resources-bloat in a few turns though.
Another thing would be to make success and failure more granular. Have a scale of success and failure instead of complete success and nothing. I think it would mostly be the failure end of things that need to be adressed - success is already pretty powerful for most actions.
For example - failing, but getting within 4 of the DDC means you keep all the influence you spent on the action if you want to attempt it again. Highly relevant for rule, contest and agitate actions.
Getting within 8 of the DDC means you keep half the influence.
Failing, but getting within 12 of the DDC means you get +2 if you attempt the same action again.
And so on, not sure I would go with that, but it's an example of what I mean. It could also encourage working on the same thing across multiple turns, which would be a good thing IMO.
Also, if we phase out the Take 10 rules, some actions would need some revamping - it would be outright silly for a move unit action to fail in conjunction with a wage war action, or at least a nightmare to administrate. Some would need to be automatic successes actions - unless some other player is acting against it.
