Mark and JP, thank you for lending your perspective. I'm very happy that you haven't personally run into this damaging attitude; unfortunately, I've encountered it in multiple chapters as mentioned before.
A couple thoughts in response:
Crafting your own armor pieces, as Mark does, is very admirable. Let's be aware, however, that such a pursuit requires several things: tools for the work, knowledge of their application and time to do it. First-time crafters will inevitably be subject to trial and error. While this process is often fun and rewarding for those that are inclined towards this type of activity, it can lead to frustration and discouragement for those that just want to "fit in" within the game culture by having a character turned out well enough to be accepted. Most players are not going to be master craftsmen, and not all of them are going to enjoy this type of pursuit, particularly if they've never been exposed to it before.
Sure, you can buy a basic leather-crafting "kit" for less than $100 in tools... to some, that's not a lot of money. I can recall times when $100 was nearly impossible to come up with, and I know a large number of our players (being college students, newly graduated, unemployed or under-employed) can't put together the cost for those pieces.
For others, the money for the basic kit and pieces might not be the deterring factor, but rather the time investment. We have a 160 page rulebook that we demand players be intimately familiar with to play our game successfully, which is in itself a daunting task. Are we truly requiring these other individuals, in order to save money on the fiscal investment, to spend time they might not have in order to play the game? Or, to spend hours scrounging on websites, bartering, trading, and trying to put together multiple costumes because they can no longer use the one they had?
So there's an option.. investing money, or investing time. Either is an investment, and both are precious. I absolutely believe we should ask players to dedicate some of that to the game: after all, it's a hobby and hobbies require an investment. What I do not think is necessarily balanced towards our real, varied player base is expecting people to be happy about donating this precious commodity (time/money, respectively) multiple times.
Once you've attained a certain level of costuming, of status/respect within the game culture, no one wants to lose that. It doesn't feel good to go from being the character with amazing, handcrafted costuming and props that are totally immersive, to being the person in sweats and a tabard the next event. And yet, that is what can happen. Or, we can simply lose players for a season (or permanently) because they can't put things together again, or don't want to because *it doesn't feel good*. It has happened, more than once. Your hobbies should not frustrate, discourage, or otherwise make you feel other than good. For people that find those feelings coming from their hobbies, they typically leave them in pursuit of something that feels better.
This is a part of the game at the moment. It happens. I'm not arguing that. What I find disquieting is the general inclination towards invalidating the frustration and discouragement that this can cause towards players that are genuinely doing their best. We welcome players from all walks of life and levels of investment; from the person that wants to spend 10 hours per week working on costumes, debating rules and volunteering on a staff, to the person that can barely get the grasp of the rules in their limited time but still wants to come contribute and play the game. BOTH are valuable parts of our Alliance, and it would be helpful for all types to be considered.
Again, while I understand that people have different perspectives, to simply discount what others say because you don't emotionally agree with their point, or would personally avail yourself of the other options, seems to be disallowing for the vast variety of individuals that play the game, and their real life circumstances.