well, thank you, nameless - it is always good to see respect for other peoples gameplay and roleplay to go around. - even if they are "...acting like lolwuts on acid or something....there about as useless and without form as a flock of brain damaged seagulls". ( imo - that is one of the differences... you haven t seen any zoner faction insulting "others" the way you go around insulting them - have you? - but at least you haven t used any dirty words, cause that d be hurting the kiddies )
sadly thought your imagination appears to be limited when you speak of greater power and stuff than houses. - cause that means that you project the playerbase to be representative for the npc factions state.
mind you - other players consider house militaries almost infinitely large ( or as large as not to care for counting every single ship you deploy or loose ) - while one considers maybe every zoner ship to be just what they have.
which would mean - zoners might have like 20 - 30 juggernauts, and the houses have 20-30 played by players and 2000-3000 not played by players but still there.
it is a fact that every popular faction gained power well beyond their capabilities - while unpopular factions mostly remained "fair" to their power. we have factions that build themselves guard systems that withstand a combined assault large fleets - we have factions that came from nowhere to power, we have factions that battled each other in fighters which were the pride and joy - and now they battle each other in huge capital ships.
we have factions that got their politics and lore turned around 180 degrees, twisted and perverted, and we have countless systems that derail from vanilla in so many ways.
those that speak of vanilla - and how one faction MUST adhere to it ... .should start at THEIR faction first... once they succeeded, they may look over to other factions.
but i find very few who demand "back to vanilla" and mean their own faction.