I reached the point where I realized how sad/bad the cheaters are and it's funny to me now. Most of the good players left because of a lack of viable competition or ambition to compete : see, most of the guilds now.
And by that I am referring to looking for reasons/help on the outside and not fixing it inside. You'll never improve if you're relying on another guild to cover what you're missing, or to hide behind their mvp cards... Part of the reason our alliance is dissolving is exactly that, I know that sort of dependency on temps/allies is harmful to the group's improvement - and the knock on effect is that if you don't improve people will leave and play elsewhere because there's no fun to be had.
The other guilds show a desire to 1v1 each other to practice and improve, I applaud that and it should be encouraged and it should be rewarding. Standing by and watching small guilds get run over by mid tier ALLIANCES (that is their 40 people w/ mvps/gods vs some small guilds 5~12 w/out gods/mvps) is a toxic situation that needs to be addressed.
Now obviously the staff can't change server politics, tho they have had their hand in creating them - they can make the game more conducive to rewarding actual gameplay and improvement. Not this no child left behind situation we have now.