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You are right about the rule that says that the commander never enters the graveyard when it dies and goes to the command zone. However, since these cards were created before the Elder Dragon Highlander format, many of their oracle texts have been updated. For example, many legendary creatures have had "is put into a graveyard from play" replaced with a simple "dies" so that their death effect can still trigger as your commander. (A notable exception to this is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn because his graveyard effect says "from anywhere", and is simply meant to prevent using graveborn cards on him. Also, he is banned as a commander last time I checked.)

Looking over it, you could probably switch in a couple scry lands rather than Caves of Koilos. Also, since Standard is generally a fast format, you might want to consider sideboarding those planeswalkers in favor of some fast little creatures that you can also sac into Butcher in a pinch. Like Monastery Swiftspears. Maybe even some Prophetic Flamespeakers.

In reply to your first question/statement/thing, he's not my style. I personally run Riku, and his playstyle really seems to mesh with how I play EDH or Magic in general. (My favorite thing to do, as anyone who looks at my decklists will see, is to find a little thing about one creature I like and get a lot of it.) But I can definitely see him as a viable commander in casual settings.

Second part of your question, I have to answer with a question: why limit yourself to standard cards? Legacy has some beauties that will work wonderfully here, such as Endless Ranks of the Dead and Doubling Season, not to mention lots more grave-pull. Especially from Innistrad. Really, the entire Dark Ascension block is your best friend in the world, giving you wonderful creatures like Diregraf Captain and Gravecrawler, instants and sorceries like Gravepurge, Zombie Apocalypse and Army of the Damned. And we haven't even touched on the blue or the green cards from the set that would mesh well.

Now that we know we want to run a deck based around zombies, we look to blue and green to help us get more zombies faster. For example, we grab Geralf's Mindcrusher, because a 5/5 for 6, with a mill effect, that becomes a 6/6 when it dies, is a steal. We grab ourselves Call to the Kindred, because we are definitely going to have a zombie on the field to use so we can pull a bunch of zombies out of our deck. We throw in Ghoultree because we will be filling up our graveyard fast. And at that point, a 10/10 for 1 is fabulous. We throw in a Screeching Skaab and an Armored Skaab to help us put more creatures in our graveyard, an Undead Alchemist because it lets you make an unfair amount of zombies, Llanowar Dead to ramp mana, et cetera. Throw in some retrieval like Regrowth and March of the Returned, a couple extra-fun cards like Kheru Lich Lord and Vulturous Zombie, and some removal and mana-ramp, and you have yourself graveborn zombie-hatred deck.

Okay, love to help, but first I need to know 3 things about your deck:
1) What are the win conditions you are looking for? Just simply dropping them to 0 life? Or something like milling their entire library?
2) What format are you looking to play? (Basically, are my suggestions limited to what is in Standard, or can I suggest other cards?
3) Is your color choice set in stone? Or are you open to, say, switching to red-black if it fits what you want better?

Best of luck, hope I can help.

Course, that's contingent on how much money I can scrounge up xD
I'll see what I can do though.

The fact that Murder isn't standard anymore saddens me almost as much as the loss of Doom Blade. But there are still plenty of good removal spells.

And yes, Champion is a better placement in your deck, especially since you intend to aggro.

I'm interested in your Kiki-Jiki and your Palinchron.

Illusionist's Bracers to equip to Phenax. I have a friend who runs Phenax, and the Bracers are devastating. Basically, for every creature, when you tap it to mill, they mill its toughness like normal, but then Bracers makes them do it again. I have only ever seen that deck lose to two EDH decks: Sliver Legion and my own Riku deck. And it lost to my Riku only because of Psychic Spiral.

You have some fancy cards in that deck. (My entire collection isn't worth that much.) Not really much to say, other than you might want a Mind Funeral in there too. Maybe some instants. Or Prophet of Kruphix.