I probably need to make more clear what the OOC problem is:
An "old boys" club in-game is something that you can break into. You can become part of the group by nothing else but playing the game.
And OOC clan, a group of friends from school, or whatever, is usually more difficult to join. Either you can't at all (without, say, moving to their country and going to their school) or you need to take steps outside the game, such as joining a clan, signing up at yet another forum, etc. etc.
The important part for me in all of that is "...by nothing else but playing the game." - we have guilds, secret societies and other groupings inside the game, so obviously it is perfectly ok to form groups inside the game. Noticed? inside the game is the keyword here. You can become a member of a guild in-game, you can join the "old boys network" in-game - no activities outside the game required.
And that's what matters to me. I would definitely come hard down upon an in-game guild that only allows people from, say, the same school into full member ranks. That's an OOC clan (precisely, an in-game representation of an OOC clan). But a guild that tries to keep power in some realms among its ranks, but that you can join and advance in without any OOC restrictions, that is just political intrigue and scheming.
