I do admit, if you think the staff is biased, its probably a sign to leave. So I don't agree with point 2 being the issue.
I've been on mu*s where you have to write applications to get approval for stuff, and the major concern from the staff side, is generally balance. It quite akward to remove a toy that a player was approved for having.
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On NRM, someone approved this Half Dragon character. Then wii bit later, when the other staff became aware of the half dragon, we felt it wasn't theme. But we couldn't really get rid of the character.
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On Sowelu favor XP system; The XP system is abstracted. Its not exactly rewarding you XP for beating up those thugs, it rewarding for you with the underlining assumption that your character is making effort to improve themselves.
You dont RP out every aspect of your character on fair amount of Mu*s. Instead, what tends to happen, you rp either the more exciting moments, or slices of life moments. Most of the character life, is assumed to have been happening.
I rarely Rp my character having to use a restroom, or eating or sleeping or reading the news paper.
Awarding XP, and then what you do with the XP are different questions.
For Navitas, I was going to do a application process and allow players to increase their own stats themselves.
For new toys, they would write an application, in which the staff can then determine a cost for the toy, or associated number of scenes needed for the toy.
To raise skills, and stats though, they would simply just buy it out right with XP with little direct involovment from Staff. The exact amount that players can spend up to, and how often havent been decided yet.