I've been thinking about this for a while, trying to get my words together. In the end I think I'm best served by staying out of any RP-VS-Content politics; it shouldn't matter what you like to do. We're all paying our monthly sub to play the game how we want to.

Ultimately, though, there just isn't a comparable system to PF for RPers. Fellowships, Linkshells, FCs, and any outside forums have to be joined in advance to be effective--and they have membership limits; PF is used because anyone can post and anyone can see at any time with no applications or searching. Shout Chat? Spamming chat channels /is/ an offense against ToS and also gets very messy quickly while people are trying to have actual conversations in a global channel.