Which is not so different from picking Netherlands & Portugal for a global highlands map, no? That bit doesn't bother me.
Not really, the UA's in Civ V are far more unique and game breaking if a civ is handicapped into ot being able to use them.
In Civ IV, Willem's Fin and Cre traits still work on any map, as do Joao's IMP and EXP.
The other thing is that people turned barbs off in Civ IV because they were rather powerful and could capture cities. In Civ V, they can no longer capture cities, well, they can, but defending against them is really really easy.
Plus another thing to remember is that Barbs are useful for all civs in Civ V. Taking out encampments is easy and gives you gold, plus you get a lot of city state requests to clear barbarian camps for free and easy influence points.
I played earlier versions of Civ exclusively with barbs turned off because I always lost cities to them (I rarely build much military and rely on ecomomy and diplomacy). In Civ V however, so far I have not had any problems with dealing with them using just my starting warrior, even if I dont build any other units for ages.
Turning barbs off in Civ V is just incredibly pointless and detrimental to every Civ in the game, as opposed to being beneficial as it was in earlier Civ games. Theres no need for it as they are so weak, and leaving them on is very advantageous for free gold and city state influence.
), so it should definitly be an illegal option to turn off barbs. 
