The placeholder rule has nothing to do with SMA. It is as much a part of the entire game's intended atmosphere as the restriction on realm mergers or the tournament IR.
All of these things are expressly intended to maintain aspects of the game's medieval setting, and all of them are game-wide, not limited to Dwilight.
Yes, when SMA came in, it did start to affect other islands. But that was in things like discouraging people from having stupid names (like alittlehopeforhopelesstimes, or xXxSlayerDragon69xXx).
If a realm does not have enough people to be permanent lords of all its regions, then it should not be trying to maintain all those regions. (If a realm on the War Island doesn't have enough interested, active people to be Lords, then it's probably going to lose very soon anyway.) When the Hinterland system comes, Soonâ„¢, there will be a clear option for realms that have more regions than they have nobles to properly handle them.
But it is not now nor will it ever be acceptable to have a small number of players who keep characters rotating through regions to maintain them.
The placeholder rule is and always has been about taking titles seriously. This is not an SMA thing, that's true—it is a BattleMaster thing. Just like having kings and dukes and roleplaying about our characters, their servants, and their doings, rather than just calling them Guy In Charge and Middle Manager and playing this as an abstract strategy game, are BattleMaster things.
The placeholder rule is not forcing everyone to play SMA. It's just insisting that everyone actually play BattleMaster.
