>I would have at least extended the grouping restriction to
>Tribunals.

The tribunals were within the restriction like anyone else. Or are you trying to say you would extend an exception to the restriction, allowing imperials to travel with tribunals (without killing them first, as I've noted was the actual policy)?

The idea being a unaligned person is "on the
>fence", so you shouldn't group with them until they come down
>one way or the other: either as an oath or as a member of an
>enemy cabal. But a Tribunal has already come down off the
>fence, so to speak, and joined a cabal that the Empire views
>as fulfilling a useful purpose. With a Tribunal there's no
>lurking suspicion in the back of the Imperial's mind that the
>guy is lying to him when he says he'll eventually take the
>Oath. You know the Tribunal never is, so you know you're not
>being deceived (in that particular way).

That makes no sense, if I understand it correctly. To an imperial there are two kinds of people, those who have sworn the bloodoath and those that haven't. Plain and simple. That's what the various laws and questions in the palace all say. Tribunals are no different from anyone else, or any other cabal. A lawful fortress paladin is just as orderly as a tribunal, and is not on any fence, but we don't travel with them do we? An evil scion is just as dark as an imperial but we don't travel with them, do we? Tribunals are allowed to do their job if the Emperor decides not to keep his scales at the palace, but that doesn't make anyone in that cabal any less required to swear the oath than anyone else.