@Arkandel I think fully organic interactions are the ideal, but maybe not very practical, especially in an aging player population that is seemingly moving away from (also organic) grid RP toward more structured and plans plots and scenes. It's also worth pointing out that policy laying out PC/NPC distinctions and boundaries doesn't necessarily require they be publicly labeled. Some might prefer this, but player advocacy and staff trust are something you have to constantly balance back and forth. Staff sets rules, but you always have to trust them to abide by and enforce them. Plus, I think the mere presence of some guidelines does tend to help (if the staff is baseline ethical, anyway).
Also, often its going to be obvious, and this goes with the kind of games we run and how we run them. Thousand year old Vampire tyrants, unassailable rulers backed by massive armies or literal divine mandates, magical beings beyond the scope of PC access (dragons, demons, etc): these things often have to (or really should) be NPCs and you may prefer the transparency to rumors of that OP character being so-and-so's PC. Some of this is unavoidable due to the thematic structures of the games we play, but if you want more organic interactions you may need to step away from this type of storytelling: obviously this is an 'ask,' since getting to play the ubergod entities (even under NPC restrictions) is a perk to staffing and you want staffing to be fun, but when every NPC is like this, its hard NOT to end up with those divides.