[Egil]

This won't make Dev change his mind about the trade restrictions (that most MMOs and MOs have, mind),

Most MMos and MOs do not have trade restrictions that needlessly and negatively impact gameplay. In FFXIV, for example, you can't trade with yourself--- because you don't need to. Items are level-capped and you usually get an abundance of them with moderate effort, so there is no need to trade with yourself like there is on SL2, where the items one needs to decently compete in PvE/PvP have insanely low drop rates or are too expensive to buy from other players.

LEing rewards the player for playing the game more. The trade restrictions promote trading and commerce between players.

That isn't the case.

Legend Extending rewards the player for grinding instead of roleplaying. If Dev intended for this to be a roleplaying game, then he should implement incentives to RP rather than reward not roleplaying.

Trade restrictions promote more grinding to get weapons and items, which keeps people away from roleplay and busy on fighting mobs all day. What little uptick in trade and commerce between players, regardless, happens OOC'ly. I rarely see anyone hunt down for an item they need Icily and receive it from another character IC'ly. This would seem to go against Dev's vision for the game but is accepted nonetheless.

In any case, I personally have a character myself who ICly hunts spatials, and has the ink put in the spatial LE damage slot for it. I personally don't mind having to OOCly LE and grind back up in order to represent his hatred for spatials ICly, damage-wise.

I did the same for Romek with the undead. That doesn't change the fact that the bonus damage didn't come from the IC act of hunting spatials. It came from one's OOC knowledge of the LE system.

In addition, if LEing really shouldn't be in the game since it's an OOC mechanic, stat placement shouldn't be in the game either; it's an OOC thing. We should gain 0.000001 STR every time we hit an enemy with a physical, STR-based attack. We shouldn't use talents, but instead have mastery systems. Oh! And don't forget that instead of having fluency, we need to have our characters go to an IC teacher, and get taught how to ICly read and write. And, last but not least, we need to implement a system where our character dies if we ever reach 0 HP in a monster fight. I mean, teleporting to the last inn you were at is totally OOC, so we should just face the fact that when the monster defeats us, it's killing us.

Of course, you need some common sense as a foundation and some leniencies in order for an RP game to run smoothly. There's no such thing as an actual pure roleplaying game. However, allowing people to Legend Extend OOC'ly instead of IC'ly is just as bad as not allowing two characters to trade simply because they're played by the same player OOC'ly. Both are antithetical to the vision that Dev himself stated that he had for SL2--- that it would be an RP game where one's OOC actions did not give you an IC benefit.

tl;dr

Dev should apply his logic consistently. If trading with yourself is wrong because it's you getting an IC benefit from doing something that is entirely OOC, then everything that is entirely OOC that has an IC benefit should be investigated and discussed to see if it actually has merit or is doing more harm than good. Since LEing promotes grinding and not roleplay, I feel that it is doing more harm than good for Dev's vision of SL2.