>I like the aspect of getting recommendations (from the IMM
>perspective) so that people are forced to interact.

It's quite dumb way of interaction. You go and tell to somebody who you don't really know your retarted background with your accent and they often don't really care about it.
The actual interaction starts when you are already in a cabal and make friends/enemies. It is more natural and more fun.

>It also reinforces the idea that something worked for feels
>like something earned, rather if it's just handed to you, it
>becomes meaningless (Oh well easy come easy go).

For somebody it feels like something earned.
For me it feels like wasted time.

>To a MUCH lesser extent, with any game like CF, there are
>processes and things to do that just keep you busy. Such as
>quests, etc. Not everyone likes them, but some people do.

More tedious = less players.
Many players told so many times. Keeping ingnoring their opinion is not against rules but doesn't help the game either.

>We could make a mud where you create your character at level
>51, then pick your cabal and poof, you are PK ready in the
>first hour.
>
>No thanks.

And that mud would have more players too.
Because ranking and induction is often a part of the char building process and after it's done the actual gameplay reaches its peak. You have time to RP/PK/explore, you have reputation, you have allies and enemies, etc.

maple.can.net test server was fun too.