Okay, feeling the need to add my two cents here. For the sake of transparency, I played Morgan. It was mentioned already way back in the thread but I might as well say so again. I played on 5W but as far as I know, I've never played with @GirlCalledBlu or @Seraphim73 anywhere else and I apped on 100 before knowing it was them who staffed it. I'm also NOT playing on the 5W reboot.
Issue #1.
It's true that their PCs were not in a position of power. However, by dint of being staff alts, they're almost automatically in positions of power. Now, I'm not afraid to be in conflict with staff alts and from day one, Morgan and Grey were pretty much arguing with each other on a near daily basis. But I think I'm the outlier when it comes to that.
Many people have had bad experiences crossing staff alts and that carries over from day to day. Even if that's not the case, many people assume that the goals and attitudes expressed by staff alts are the direction staff want the game to go so they're leery about trying to swim against the current even when, as Andi and Orion expressed multiple times in my hearing/reading both here and on the game, that's not intended to be the case.
Is that their fault? No. They're just playing their characters and, especially in Grey's case, forcefully expressing the views and loudly advocating for the desired course of action OF THEIR CHARACTERS. Not of staff. If players choose to follow along with it, that's their choice and not something staff has any control over. That being said, it is something staff need to be aware of and take into account. There is a very, very long history of staff abusing their positions and those who don't toe the line get the boot or relegated to the sidelines. It still happens though, fortunately, not as much as it used to. Still, the BNW thread is a great example of it.
Issue #2.
Regarding playing the game before it is opened to the public and starting out with an advantage, all I can say it that it is an issue. In fact, it is an issue on every single game I've ever played on. People decide to open a game, build it, invite their friends over to alpha and beta test it, and then open it to everyone else. And not once, to my knowledge, has staff ever reset their characters to starting stats. If it's not a game with XP (like trait based supers games), the staff and all their friends end up with all the most popular FCs. That doesn't make it right but as far as I've seen, it is the default state of opening a game.
Issue #3
This one has no qualifier: A husband and wife team should never be the sole staff on a game (not including the coder). I'll expand this to any two people who happen to be close and think similarly about the direction of the game. Two people are not enough to run a game. It's too easy to burn out. And, in regards to this thread, it's too easy to not get opposing viewpoints.
To use the example @Miss-Demeanor brought up, if you have to ask a player if doing something would be a bad idea, you don't have enough staffers to run ideas by. And the answer would have been: would you have given a player permission to do it? If the answer is no, then the staffer shouldn't be either. There's no qualifier here like in the other issues. It's just a bad idea. It doesn't work well.
After a long, long time, someone finally convinced me to staff. And there are things that happen that I have very definite opinions on. But there's 5-6 pretty active staffers and on anything regarding policy, theme or something similar, we talk it out. Sometimes my opinion gets outvoted or I get talked down. And that's fine. I have my biases and they aren't necessarily the best for the game (actually they are but I'm just waiting to say I told you so).
The point being, games need multiple staffers who don't necessarily have the same opinion on how the game should be. It's not only best for the game, it's less stressful for the staff to be able to take a break and not have everything come to a grinding halt.
