I remember when these edges came out Nep said that if you autoassist even one time or accidentally participate in a gang that leads to somebody's death the edges are completely negated and do nothing for you.

Is this still true?

I've seen references to the edges a few times lately but to me it seems like these edges would be pretty much impossible to keep effective in today's climate.

Like even if someones groupmate wakes them up for .05% damage and they die to you you lose all benefits of edges.

?

I don't think anyone has said that.

Personally I always too ehren soul, and sometimes ehren lord, and I've never felt that I've been screwed on them. And yes, I have issues like people getting woken by their groupmates. However, that shouldn't ruin your gankometer much if you solo kill almost exclusively.

I almost never have gankometer above 1.5. Tsal was a little over 1.1. But that wouldn't put me off walking up to two groups of 4 fighting each other and spamming iceball at them both in the hope of landing a killing blow. So provided you genuinely don't hunt in groups you should be fine.

As an experiment I went back and looked at the AKGS of some of my long-lived characters.

Sivyh 2.04
Waserax 1.92
Sulye 1.46
Mizfara 1.49
Lithodora 1.40
Ageryn 1.73
Kasir 1.82

Interesting that I get a pretty wide range even though I don't play them any differently. Waserax is the only one I intentionally ganged people with, partnering with Hunsobo, and he didn't even have the highest gank-o-meter. Not sure what was up with Sivyh.

With the thieves, I think I would often pick people off after they'd been fighting other people.

Sodsob had Soul and Lord with a gank-o-meter of 1.53.

And from the Ehren Lord helpfile:

"Characters who choose this edge and despite it gang opponents down will find that their honorable soul rebels against their lifestyle as this edge grows less and less useful, ultimately providing no benefit or even only detriment to them."

Sounds like a sliding scale as your gank-o-meter goes up.