FWIW, the rules and culture on CF, especially as it relates to the issues at hand, are very different from most of the popular MUDs (in case, let's say with player bases that are higher than CF, on average) out there today.

You can throw MMOs and all that crap out if you want. Even if you look only at MUDs, most of the big ones either don't forbid a lot of the behavior that at least a sizable portion of CFs player bare wishes CF does or they aren't nearly as severe in their forms of punishment.

I don't think "enforced RP" has anything to do with most of this. It's absolutely possible, and quite common, for people to know the players of the characters they interact with in-game and still RP just fine. This is probably why most people don't notice this stuff happens, because they can't tell the difference. As long as people are acting out their roles and otherwise behaving as their role, cabal dogma, religion, alignment, etc. say they should, then who they play with or how has nothing to do with OOC connections. In fact, I've been in situations before where the ONLY valid group mates my character had to pick from were people in knew OOC. Should I break RP and refuse to group with someone I otherwise would just because I know who plays that character?

None of this is an argument for CF changing it's policy, it's simply a counter-argument to the notion that CF is somehow special or that modern observations about game design, player habits, etc., do not apply to CF.