I play two types of characters- old ass ones that go to age death and throw away trash chars that I don't take past 30 95% of the time. Every single one of my old ass chars that I play seriously goes well over 200 hours and was rewarded to a degree, except my very first char that I made to learn how to play CF. (Yay for Zannon!)
Thendrell, 3 virtues / tattooed. (And that was because Ysal took pity on a newbie learning the game and took it on herself to actively help me get better at really playing a character.)
Kalisda- Two RC honorable mentions- got a cabal edge and 2 con
Lasentia- Got +2 chr for RC, courage spell for Thror tournament
Allysia- +1 charisma for being old as hell
Salyeris- Battlecry skill, +2 con for RC, tattoo and quest instrument

However, looking at my char pbfs, in almost all cases those rewards came at a fairly late point in life by CF standards- a point where most players have already deleted since most chars never top 200 hours. And outside of Thendrell getting 3 virtues and a tattoo (and I was uncaballed and did no pk'ing really), it would be hard to say any of these were over rewarded or extremely powerful because of imm rewards. And with all those rewards, I was happy to get them because they were bonuses. Any bonus is nice to get, but they are never required to make a char tough. Allysia was actually my strongest char PK wise, and she was the least rewarded of them all. Rewards don't make the char strong, the player does. My bards do well because I learned the class, not because of the rewards they got.

So that said, I have no problem with people getting rewards and some people being tougher than others. However, I also have to think any reward should truly be earned. The turnover in CF is so easy that there is not all that much incentive to sticking it out with a char. You notice this a lot when you play a single char for a very long time- that you have maybe a group of 8-10 chars that are consistent and that is around like you are, but otherwise, it's mostly new faces every 5 to 6 weeks. People throw in the towel early and often, for whatever reason. And that's their choice to make, but how many RC winners have we seen where the guy deletes within a week of winning? How many chars ever make it past 200 hours even? (I'd say less than 10%) We notice the strong ones because they are the ones sticking it out. They are the old characters. They have gained notoriety that makes them stand out. I couldn't tell you a thing about Oshui for example, I'd never heard of the guy until people started bitching about black jaguar. I think he talked smack to my Commander once, that was about it. But now, everyone knows who he is mainly because of a reward he got. Then they blame Baer for it and for favoring people, which is not really fair to her. I think Baer is a cheerleader for CF as a whole, not just for her followers. She puts a lot of effort into CF that goes unnoticed and unappreciated I'm sure. But the second she gives one guy a perk, people complain. I don't even think his was an RC, which makes it even harder to bitch about. RCs are the only thing I take issue with, and even then, it's hit or miss.

A RC should be a reward for people having truly played out their role instead of just having written it. Put a 200 hour minimum on a char before they can enter a RC, hell make it 300. It should be a reward for people having an actual impact on the game by their presence, not people that don't have any impact until they get the reward. Also, the reward should not be the rich getting richer- make the rewards more subtle. Battlecry on Salyeris was a nice perk, but it was functionally useless in terms of making my char stronger. It netted me maybe 2 kills in the 400 hours I had it. But it was a nice RP perk that gave me a slight edge. The con itself was the best reward, because that enabled me to just keep playing and having fun in the game.

Putting requirements on an RC entry ensures the guy is playing the role to play the role, not writing the role to try and gain an RC win. The scion def/def shifter may be awesome, but people are going to see the char as nothing but an OP over rewarded scion shifter because they gave an offensive quest form to a def/def scion. There are valid concerns when you can win an RC in 50 or even 100 hours. There are concerns when you give a def/def shifter in scion a highly offensive form to compliment his already high power level. (And I just hate shifters and will never see thje appeal of playing another one anyway, but that is my personal bias coming through) And people will key in on those chars far more than the ones who never get anything, and point and cry foul and say "why not me?".

As players, we have to stop thinking of CF as a place where our char is the most important, where we should be rambo and kill everyone and blame everyone else when it does not work out. I roll chars, rank to 11, and charge people and die. Get up, do it a few more times, then delete. I had fun for a few hours, and Cf enabled me to do that. Cause hey, why the hell not? If people stopped thinking PK was the end all be all, or that PK statistics in any way shape or form even mattered, we'd all be better off.

You know what I got for hitting 250 pks with a character? The same thing Phyliis Weaver got for choosing the box in wheel of fish instead of taking the Red Snapper. Absolutelty nothing. (Really, this whole post was really just a way for me to put a UHF reference in) The CF imms didn't send me a check for $500.00 and a plaque saying congratulation for winning CF signed by the entire Immn staff. They didn't say you get to choose a special race/class combo for your next char. Basically, all that I got for playing a char for 990 hours was the fun of playing the character. And if it's not fun to play a char because you feel like you need rewards to compete against a handful of other people that have them, well, that's just unfortunate. There is fun to be had in CF even when you're not PKing people.

And if people really want those super juiced characters dead it's pretty easy actually. Any two people can easily make a combo of two chars that can effectively slaughter any one. But I think at the heart of it what people complain about is not that there are tough chars around, it's just that at the moment they are not playing one of them.

Luckily there's a solution for that. Play a wood-elf bard! It's so easy, even a newb can do it, I'm proof of that.