A couple things:

I don't necessarily understand why, from a purely IC perspective, an (IC) Immortal would come on somehow for this. Based on how you described things, I get the feeling this is a staff member using IC mechanisms to punish them for something that YOU think is lame (hoarding), but isn't necessarily bad RP and is not, as far as I can tell, against the rules.

So, as I understand it, it went down like this:
1) You notice a guy hoarding eq. It's not against the rules and the character has no role entries or other virtues that would make hoarding "bad RP" AFAIK.

2) You don't like this. Maybe other Imms don't like it. You use IC mechanisms to bust his chops.

3) Dude takes it the wrong way and it becomes an issue. Nasty mess ensues.

I certainly realize it isn't the player base's prerogative to tell you guys how to do your jobs and that WE shouldn't dictate policy. That said, it seems like a pattern is developing, which is the transition from #2 to #3.

So... I'm simply going to throw out there as calmly and politely as I can the idea that the staff consider how well #2 has been working out for them lately and how much lame #3 it leads to and think about maybe working on that.

Perhaps you could introduce some helpfiles that elaborate on some of the "not quite against the rules, but still problematic" issues, or maybe just pull these people aside and talk to them face-to-face instead of trying to handle it with (let's face it, negative) RP, which commonly upsets people.

You'd be absolutely right if you said you shouldn't have to do that or that those people are a minority and just aren't "worth it", but at the end of the day, addressing the fact that the aforementioned scenario seems to go poorly often enouogh, there might be some PR value in reevaluating how that's handled. It's not that you're not right, you probably are in the right, but if situations like this can be avoided by making an adjustment that is within your control to do, maybe that's worth it if it means less drama llamas.

I REALLY hope this doesn't come off as a rant, because that isn't my intention.