While I could agree that a good bit of roleplay is just the generic and polite hello's along with 'pvp foreplay' I gotta disagree on some things with you Jack.
The character per message limit is only troublesome if you're used to writing big batches of text. If you adjust the way you type into breaking things to smaller batches of text things flow better. That of course works mainly for speech as speech doesn't go instantly anyways. Though if you add any mimics and other descriptions of what your character did or is then it could get a bit slow to split everything properly and not lose the connection between things. Either way, I've done more than a few sessions of roleplay that lasted several hours with nothing but the "small character limit".
The second thing I kind of gotta disagree on is the pseudo-roleplay thing. While indeed it's motivated from oorp distaste I am certain it holds RP grounds as well. If you can't hit people because their ship is too good then your character also can't hit them so why should only you be angry about it? Same goes for asteroids really. I'm good at pewing in open space and I hate it when my shots get soaked up by asteroids so why shouldn't the character I'm portraying hate that thing as well?
Also it doesn't take actual planning to start some RP rather than mutual compatibility between the characters' interests and someone willing to start the whole interaction. My last few hour interaction with Umber was done out of the simple compatibility that my character was always interested in how other mercenaries operate (mainly the bigger groups - Reavers and RIP Mandos) and that Umber is well a dirty Reaver.
