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I have started play-testing the Grasshopper, and first indications are that
it is an exceedingly weak piece. One has to be careful, though, not to start
from a normal western opening position, with a full back-rank of Pieces
behind a cosed rank of Pawns. If some of the pieces are Grasshoppers, this
is not a quiet position, but highly tactical. E.g., if you replace the
Knights of white by Grasshoppers, white starts with 1. Gb3, with an
immedite fork on Nb8 and Ng8, so that white has at least a Knight for its
first Grasshopper. If two Grasshoppers replace white Bishops, black even
has to give a Rook for a Grasshopper!

All this initial Grasshopper tactics can be avoided by moving the pawns
one rank forward. In this case no immediate forks are possible to exchange
the Grasshopper from scratch against something stronger, and they have to
prove their intrinsic worth. Which is very low: replacing both Bishops or
both Knights of a FIDE piece set with two Grasshoppers leads to 86%-88%
losses for the Grasshoppers.

I am trying now replacing only one Knight or Bishop by two Grasshoppers.
(The empty rank between Pieces and Pawns offers a natural possibility to
start with more than 8 Pieces, in a Shogi-style array.)