I have never minded RPers to be honest.

As long as they don't try to make my dungeon run a novel, I'm alright with it.

I never knew Balmung was the unofficial rp server, even in 1.0. It must have been a really small community back then, because I don't remember seeing much RP in the old days. However I see it here and there now in towns. Always fun to stop and listen, brings an extra little life to the server.