I certainly can't make any excuses for S-E. I've been playing various MMOs over the last 18 years, and this game is by far the most overrun by RMT spammers. (Not to say no other MMOs have it any worse--some might, but I just haven't played them.)

Sadly, manually reporting spammers is a regularly recurring part of my gaming experience--so much that I'm beginning to feel there should be an achievement chain for it. The bottom line is that S-E hasn't prioritized getting any better at this. There are lots of ways to streamline the RMT reporting and mitigate the spam effect, but the most S-E has been able to muster after months of updates is an option to delete your tell history (which reportedly doesn't even work).

The fact that I'm playing this game is a testament to the quality of the remaining content. But the RMT stink is the single biggest thing keeping me from recommending it to friends.