I've been a Fontan player since 2007, with a break from the game in 2010 for personal reasons, and during that time I've seen it run both highly efficiently and lackadaisically via IC means as the fortunes of war ebbed and flowed. Much of the political tension which made the realm so much fun flowed from the desire of our military to plan in a private realm message group whilst the guardians of the democratic tradition wanted oversight - much like the tension in ancient Rome between Senate and Emperor. At times we achieved incredible efficiency even with 100+ players because people wanted to play regularly and engage IC.
I therefore appreciate the argument the Aurvandil players are extending for why that realm is doing well, and why they run it the way they do. And I don't doubt that they're sincere in their defence. However I suspect they're missing the bleeding obvious.
The Auvrandil contingent who've joined Fontan in recent months don't seem to communicate with the wider community, have no apparent IC commonality beyond Aurvandil, don't involve themselves in the public institutions which traditionally orchestrate Fontanese society (The Assembly and Ministry of Defence) and lack even the very basic historical knowledge a random peasant would possess. The latter could be remedied with either a half-hour reading the wiki or a few days talking to existing characters.
No one should ever be punished for not doing basic homework, but it's clearly rude in a friendly game to move in en masse and completely ignore everything that's gone before. To my mind it's indicative of a mindset which - regardless of vehement protests to the contrary in forum threads - not only excludes players who aren't part of a self-identified group but also values success by the metrics of financial gain and military success more than it does building a fun shared playing environment.
My particular bugbear though is that the current general is run by a player who still insists on issuing both realm wide and individual orders without in any way seeking to include marshals in that process, despite this having been addressed both IC and OOC. Such behaviour runs directly counter to the advice given in the manual on how to play a Government Position and this raises the spectre of power being abused to deliberately favour one group of players in Fontan at the expense of others.
These orders are issued on a turn-by-turn basis with very little explanation of a broader strategy and only characters of this particular group seem privy to any of the "special" orders relating to looting, which further adds to the impression of cliquishness.
I've played positions of authority and there are times when an order outside the usual feudal chains of command makes sense for IC reasons. The natural break on doing this regularly is the pushback IC from those holding the feudal rights which have been compromised. It's certainly not something that should be the norm.
