It is your element type that's causing the problem. Flexion-torsion always requires an orientation (v6.4 Analysis Manual sect.17.1.6)
You could either try a different element type, or create a dummy coordinate system that's the same as the global one.
As far as I know, Abaqus/Standard won't help in making beams contact.
If you could switch to Abaqus/Explicit, then it is fairly easy to define a general contact condition which will handle beams (with the friction you like) as well. But locking them with "barbs", I don't know...
We are currently running Abaqus v6.3 on two different platforms, one an Intel Pentium IV, and the other an AMD.
For more detailed info you should refer to www.abaqus.com
Hakan.