You're forgetting, or maybe weren't around for (I have no idea) that a permagroup gang of characters engineered to play together, possibly played by players in the same lab, etc. was an order of magnitude worse than any gang you'll see assemble in the game currently.

If OOC-engineered groups of characters are allowed, then, I'm sorry, but nothing else is even really competitive. No reason to conserve the con of your character if you can level a new one right back up three times as fast as anyone else. No reason to build a character that is optimal for anything but PK if you're going to have the numbers to level and gear-forage with ease. No way a single character has a prayer of killing any of his six enemies when they log on and off together and hunt him together. (Unless you're... well, that doesn't really keep us on topic. Anyway.)

There was a time when people like Cador and Twist and I would sometimes make characters together because, frankly, the way things were at the time it just was the only way to even be close to playing the same game. A pair of, let's say, Twist and I still wouldn't be in a great position against a team of four guys playing from the same lab, but it would at least be a fight and not a pure steamroll.

Of course, the corallary of that is that after the four guys log off, now if you're a single player you have to worry about Twist and I paired up to come and roll you, and I don't like your chances. We always tried to be "better" about dominating that way than the purely mortal players, but if you're a single player that's a lot like saying having one leg forcibly amputated is better than having both chopped off. It still sucks. The whole thing was a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle.

One day we decided you shouldn't need a number of friends roughly equal to the number of people in the groups currently dominating the game to play. We changed the rules, and that's pretty much been that. And while there are times I would've liked to play with my friends in the old school way, I think the change is still for the better. One guy actually can play this game and be competitive now.

What does it matter if your friend chooses to stay and play because he can play with you, if he quits two weeks later when he finds out that the two of you are going to get wasted by six guys from Iowa every time you log on?