It's not all about just "logging in to the game", it's about that you have to render all these characters everywhere you go.
I'm sure I'm not alone on this, as there are some camps I cannot even see the "quest" or "levemate" icons above NPCs
because there are 80+ people sitting on top of the NPCs AFK. It can get a bit frustrating.

It goes well beyond clicking start>your character>ok. It still affects the gameplay whether you think it or not. It affects
server load, fact. People who think that it doesn't change anything by having 500+ chars by an aethernet are kidding
themselves.

And even STILL, I have not seen one reason to stay logged in besides "I wanna read FC chat". Log your paranoid ass
off and go outside.