I understand the 'we gained freedom' and I'm not saying VA's were great. But who has really developed with all this potential? I don't see any Knox murderers, I don't see any Master Thieves guilds, I don't see pirate crews.
I think that perhaps it did create more bandits, but my base-line for 'more bandits' is Asulon, where fast travel was really popular so bandits didn't have as much of a chance to bandit people.
For me, at least, it made be able to RP my characters how I wanted to without hinderance, which I liked.
And of course games need boundaries, but especially in a roleplayig game, if you have les boundaries you can generally have a much better time. You have to weigh that against 'Will this make the server experience poorer' or whatever.