I never quite got the stigma of homage or pastiche characters. As a player and staffer I think I prefer them. I think they come with a number of inherit advantages. For starters, it sets a tone for the character without having read anything else. A pastiche of Batman is going to have a different feel than one of Daredevil.
It also automatically sets some power level parameters. One of my primary problems with OCs is that many players automatically shoot for 'best there is on the game' in some way, shape, or form. For instance, if someone is a homage to Spider-Man you're likely not going to see a flying brick with super-speed and laser eyes.
It also eliminates the "Oh, my favorite characters are taken..shoot..." issue. Want to play a Batman homage? Go for it. Just make sure that it is, in some small way at least, different from Batman and different from the other Batman homages on the game.
I would be all for an OC game that either highly encouraged or required characters to be homages to existing comic characters. When pondering OC games I've often thought about doing something in the Squadron Supreme universe using Hyperion, Power Princess, Doctor Spectrum, Nighthawk, and Whizzer as benchmarks/examples and then just letting people fill out the rest of the universe with their own OCs, the only requirement is that they're an homage to an existing comic character.
