Man, I rped in the golden age of rp which was AOL chatrooms, as such, rp has come quite a long way obviously. Admittedly, I don't do very much of it at all recently, but I had some fun in a fc that did back in 2.0. I think people should be free to do it when they want how they want to. It's a great mode of self expression, and though reading through this thread I see examples of not so great usage, i.e. "This is my original the character do not steal, he's edgy and a jerk so I'm a jerk to everyone." That's not cool, and causes unnecessary drama.

As for erp...
I'd say do it somewhere where people aren't.