To be honest, I joined late 4.84 and I never had any problems problems where the server rules were involved, I can't relate to any of these claims of favouritism, so there must be something different I did than most of you complaining.
All I can remember I did when I was new was
A) Didn't rush head on and blindly into a large ship or an unusual RP situation, probably because I was inadvertently RPing back in Vanilla SP. (But I did go through a Zoner IDed, LPI tagged Adv. Train phase for about a week)
B) Joined an official faction right away, whose advise probably kept me out of trouble.
I can't relate to any of this so I'm sure you'll understand if you don't have my sympathy's.