Ya, honestly I think its case closed. The biggest point is Tom wants the game-play to stay as near 100% in the game. Is that possible, no and I'm sure he knows that. But as a prior history player that started a new account I can say that there is typically less communication in the game now than in the past. As far as Role-play I would remove that tag and make a general statement that all messages are considered role-play unless marked for OOC. Then add a narrative feature that makes it simple to understand that its a character role-play that generally does not involve others. So character wise you have zero knowledge unless the narrator leaves clues for you to gain. That would resolve the issue of the role-play forum imo. This has been brought up before in different forms so I believe its worth a greater gain than leaving it to sit idly by.
Completely missed the point about the roleplay forum. Its not to do with IG/OOG seperation there. The problem with closing it is that good RP now has no way to make its way to a bigger audience than a realm/guild/religion etc.
