Pawns in the center: strength or weakness? In most openings, pawns typically end up at some of the centre squares. There is really no other way to open up the long diagonals(c1-h6,a6-f1) for the bishops. However, how desirable is this? Hypothetically speaking, assuming there were some special rules in chess which allowed bishops to be developed along these long diagonals without having to push away the e and d pawns, would these pawns still end up getting pushed onto the centre squares?
Yes. The main reason to move your d- and e-pawns forward is to control the center with them. The fact that they allow the bishops to be developed is secondary. (Often bishops are fianchettoed anyway.)