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1) "-est ever" type declarations in player descriptions. CF is going on nine years old, and over that span of time I shudder to think how many times I've witnessed the the strongest or biggest giant that I've ever seen, ugliest orc that I've ever seen, or most beautiful elf with the largest breasts that I've ever seen.
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This is just because people don't know how to write good descriptions. The things you listed is annoying, but even moreso are people that list full equipment lists in their description. If you're char's desc says he's wearing a gleaming shirt of silver chainmail, but he's really wearing a shirt of black chainmail, its kind of silly.


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2) Characters that exhibit great RP among their friends, but won't offer word one or any semblance of interaction to their enemies.

This is arguable, because enemies are often just that, enemies. I don't disagree that it would be silly for Battleragers and mages to routinely sit down for tea and discuss current events. At the same time, when I look back on playing the game and the characters that were fun to fight, I never remember the "I don't actually have quiet mode on, but I might as well" type characters. A year passes and damned if I can remember their names. It's the interactors that stick out in my mind, the kind of enemies with style that I loved to hate, the kind that made CF a blast even when they were mercilessly whipping my ass.
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I agree that interaction with enemies is very cool, but your views on this are very colored by your skill as a player. I think I am just about as 'average' a player as there is, skillwise at cf. Often, I am too busy spamming 'where', hunting, or getting hunted to interact with enemies. This is triply true when playing a caballed char, who have the most IC reason to interact with enemies in many cases.


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3) Characters that can quote their cabal/religion's helpfile very nicely, but falter quickly when a discussion/argument meanders away from it.

Maybe that's a player limitation, I don't know. Honestly, if I wanted to read help Sylvan/Battle/Maran/Scarab/etc., I would just read it. (If I didn't like what it said, I might just change it. I'm crazy like that.) Obviously, the basic philosophy of a cabal/religion is going to place certain restrictions on you, but there is always a lot of room to play with, too. Let me feel your character's role come out even in discussing that philosophy. The Tribunal laws, to take one example, are about as cut and dried as any of this gets, but there are a thousand different reasons why your character could believe laws are a good idea, and every one will color how s/he sees the laws differently.

Help file quotation syndrome is frustrating in roleplaying with enemies, but it's a hundred times more frustrating if you're a cabal leader or empowering immortal.
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This one is just people thinking they have to do that to get into cabals/get empowered/get tattooed, which simply isn't true. I've played at least one trib who professed to leadership that he didn't care about the law persay, but was willing to uphold it in good faith. That may have gotten him watched, but he did what he said and everything was hunky-dory. Similarly, I played a rager that didn't 'hate' all mages, but had enough reason to dislike magic that he killed them. He was open about this and didn't get kicked from ragers. It's more of an issue of finding an IC balance between being able to ACT like the cookie cutter, but being able to have different reasons, and different ways of acting, especially out of PK. Hell, I got Scar to empower of a shaman of mine who ran around talking about how good and pure he was. Quickest empowerment I ever got, but I made it work logically.


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4) Cabal leaders or other authority figure characters who are afraid to reject applicants, toss out existing cabal members, or otherwise be harsh even when it's called for.

I don't know that this is so much a roleplaying concern in all cases, but the previous point reminded me of it.
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Not going to comment on this one as I've never had a cabal leader.


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5) Players who try to bring the concept of game balance into the game.

Yes, you as a player know the game is supposed to balance out in some way, shape, or form. For the most part, your character probably doesn't have that mentality. I have a very hard time even imagining how a statement of the form "X skill/spell/power is too overpowered, that's why you killed me" could be considered in-character.
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This is just bad roleplay, plain and simple.


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6) Players who are only capable of playing one type of character.
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If the chars are well done, why care? If some one really likes playing steadfast, stalwart paladins, and really pulls them off why be annoyed that they play alot of them? Do you get annoyed with Abernyte for playing lots of ragers and playing them well?


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7) The amazing halting role.

Sometimes I spot a level 1 character with just the most amazing role, with unique RP hooks or an enthralling backstory. Five hundred hours and fifty levels later, I look at the role again and nothing has changed. Granted, I'm thrilled that you wrote such a cool thing to begin with, but would it kill you to add on to it or update it periodically? It's tough for me to know how I should deal with a character with this elaborate role about abuse at the hand of mages, who I then see raiding the village and butchering Battle. Did he abandon his role entirely? Have a series of events gradually changed the character's viewpoint? I have no idea.
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Maybe you should make it clear that novelesque roles don't help people as much as they think that they do? My most recent char had a very simply written role, very straight forward, but he got more immteraction than I have in a while. On the otherhand, I updated the role pretty often with what he was thinking, and explaining goofy things that he was doing.

People, I think, are more likely to update their role if they don't feel like they are adding boring stuff to their Magnum Opus.


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8) Players who are only "on" in terms of roleplay for interviews, or when they have reason to believe they're being watched. That one's self-explanitory.
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Two edged issue here. If more of those little 500 xp bonuses were given out for random #### people did, maybe they would role play more when they didn't know they were being watched. Now, I got unempowered once for ####ing up my rp seriously when I didn't think anyone was watching, and since then I've been careful to roleplay -all- the time. But I don't push my rp as hard when I don't think anyone is watching, I just make sure I stay in role to some degree. If you want people to rp hard when they don't think people are watching, you need to watch them when they don't think you are watching.


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9) Players who don't think very hard about the implications of their character's beliefs/roleplay, especially when it comes to choices in who to kill or what gear to wear.

There sure are a lot of paladins running around murdering sentient neutral mobs for gear without a second thought. Think about that for a minute.
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This has always bothered the #### out of me. Such considerations have played into why I've never rolled a paladin. Too much hassle not being able to kill 2/3's of the things in the game. If it bothers you as an IMM so much, why don't you punish it when you see them do it. This seems like a pretty easy thing to fix, since you are aware of it, you see it often, and you have the tools to discourage people from doing things like that.


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10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or there for flavor? That I have no problem with, especially if it's for a concept that doesn't really exist in English/common. To try to explain what I mean poorly with real-world examples, words like 'karma', 'machismo', or 'bushido' might succinctly refer to non-Anglo-Saxon-ish background concepts.
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I would never rp in that way, but.......

Maybe if chars that did that sort of thing didn't get rewarded so often people would do it less? I've seen a good number of chars with this sort of thing going who have gotten glittering prizes from the IMMs.

"New payment options w/ Iron Realms"