What exactly were the complaints Kiki? I'm interested in hearing exactly what was said.
I don't think 10ish day deadlines don't work. Quite the contrary actually, as they work quite well here as we can all see. It's just that I think playing with days that have no initial deadline is principally better.
Reason being, on top of the arguments I posited with regards to game flexibility and letting the game progress naturally as the players would have it, there exists the argument that imposing initial deadlines has a direct influence on the natural flow of gameplay, just as much as adding a deadline to a deadlineless day does.
When you set a deadline of say, 10 days on day phases, you are communicating the message that the day should take around 10 days. It's not explicitly said, but that's the idea that is suggested. This often causes people to play day phases with a style of "how do we best use our ten days" as opposed to "let's talk until we find someone we think is scum, lynch them, and then move on". It's not uncommon for days to be drawn out unnecessarily in games with arbitrarily set deadlines just because the players feel some sort of "obligation" to use all the time allotted to them because by setting an arbitrary deadline, you're making time a premium. When you do that, people have the natural tendency to not want to waste what is given to them that has value.
If you don't have deadlines on day phases, this type of influence doesn't exist. With responsible players, the day will progress and end naturally when the goals of the town for that day are accomplished and not one minute sooner or later. By not making dayphase time a premium, no one will be distracted, rushed, or made lethargic as a result of being early or late in the arbitrary day phase timeline. Without the deadline, players have COMPLETE control over when the day ends. They either end it quickly when they want to by driving a lynch through, keep the day going as long as needed by keeping discussion up, or let the day die down and be closed away by the mod if they are unable to progress on their own. All of these results are wrought by the in game decision of players. Just because the mod can ultimately set a deadline doesn't mean that that isn't under the players' control. They directly catalyze that action so ultimately it falls under their culpability.
That's my whole point about the game being more natural. As previously stated, setting preset deadline causes players to fall into a cyclic dayphase pattern of play, when I feel mafia is better played when dayphase should always be what you make of it.
Of course this does require responsible, active players to be successful and there's never a guarantee that you'll have that in any given game, but principally speaking I really think it's the best system for all the aforementioned reasons.