As one of the many players who helped Plight through some dark times and who helped guide Plight to where it is now (a place Soc does not like), I'd like to offer my opinions on a few things.
1) Soc, you left Plight in the lurch and I don't think you should be complaining about how the tribe has turned out. You elevated me to a leadership position and then you kinda disappeared, for weeks at a time. I understand RL takes precedence but in your absence Seagryfn and I (and others) kept the tribe together and led it as best we knew how. If you wanted Plight to remain your tribe, run the way you wanted, then you needed to stay active and continue to lead. SG and I would have been fine with that. There was no coup d'etat -- it was an abdication. I think you should come to peace with that and it doesn't seem like you have. I feel like you're bitter about things, which makes me feel bad as I liked you when you led Plight. But it doesn't make me feel guilty about where Plight is now. For me personally, Plight feels like a better tribe now.
2) Just as an aside, I'd like to contrast how you and I stepped down. You not only basically disappeared on us, but we've heard (while this is just rumor, we did hear it from several separate sources on a number of occasions) that you had been badmouthing the way I and SG were running the tribe. It felt to me like you were doing a little sabotage. Not as much as you could have, certainly, but it felt like there was bitterness there that you were venting (from what others told us).
For my part, I took over the leadership position after you left and led the tribe as best I could. I kept having disagreements with a couple of key players and I eventually decided that my management style wasn't working with those players. I told SG and Qoffee that I wanted to step down, as I felt that'd be best for the tribe. And I feel that was a good decision. I like the direction the tribe has been moving in with them leading it and I think the players who were unhappy with me are happier now.
But once I decided to step down and let others determine the direction of Plight, I've remained in the tribe. I've remained active and supported the current leadership in any form I could. Frankly, I feel this gives me the right to comment on the current state of Plight but IMO the way you disappeared on the tribe means you gave up that right. Again IMO, but it feels to me like a lot of your comments since have come from a sense of bitterness that Plight didn't fall apart or disband when you left.
3) I think we were getting our asses kicked in the Orc war. Our whole northern front completely fell apart, from players who quit and others who just ran away and cowered. I give you props for holding the tribe together then; I think that was your finest hour. You got some of the bigger southern players, me and a couple others, to move up there and prop things up. And I was sitting a position from which I did a lot of damage up there, knocking out a couple of players. And a few northern players, such as AG33, were working well up there. But I think we were one good push from completely falling apart up there, all the way down to our southern strength. The fact that the push never came had little to do with us and more to do with our foes' lack of will to press it home. Viewed in the very best light, IMO, that war was a stalemate for us and we were very lucky to get that.
4) Frankly, I don't get the whole elite thing. I don't know who's elite and who isn't. I certainly don't consider myself to be. I've just been active and juggled as best I could. I guess there are two players in W16 I think of as "elite," about whom I've thought, "Wow, I hope to hell I never have to fight them even up." And that's Seagryfn, because I've seen amazing offensive and defensive skill from her and learned a lot from her, and AxltheCat. While I have no contact with him in W16, I started out next to him in W36 and saw him grow 2-3 times faster than me under identical conditions. Yikes, glad he's on my side.
While there are many other players I like and respect in W16, including you Soc, I have no clue where to draw the "elite" line nor (for the most part) who would be on each side of it.
Sorry to be so late into this thread and perhaps address dead issues, but I very rarely visit the PnP forums.
FWIW,
Mike