I agree 100% with your overall ideas and many of your reasons, I am very willing to support them. 

I personally have been very alarmed by the negative effects that leveling has had on unions and although it is helpful, keeping them active, it just isn't necessary.  They can reward unions with hard earned emblems and reflect activity through additional emblems; they can be broken down into different categories of activity.  The activity, MIA emblems, etc are enough of a deterrent and I think they are a great idea.  I was hoping, when they were first created, that it would be a sign of the end of leveling for good, but so far, well... not yet.  As a leader of a union myself, I am often pressured to keep it active for superficial reasons and am forced to often stand up to my own members to support what I believe.  In order for a union to be credible, it has to be honest, otherwise it is just an over glorified board and why have it? 

I also have a few additional suggestions.  They need to give GS members the option to block invites.  I do not invite to annoy, I try to find and create new Fatal Frame fans.  However, often people who are not interested get invited and it puts me in an uncomfortable position.  I try to research and invite based on potential interest, or at least a common interest that might convince them to try the series, but I don't want to annoy people.  If people could block invites, it would be a lot easier for me. 

I also wish they would put back up the lists of people who own a certain game again.  When this all kicked off, you could go to a game page here in gamespot, click on the collection list and it would pull up all the people who have that game listed in their collection.  You were able to do an informed invite, instead of guessing or going in search of "maybes."  I could invite GS members who actually owned Fatal Frame games to the Fatal Frame union, that was helpful.  I will stop by again and offer more feedback.  Feel free to message me with your comments, instead of making me search the board.  Much love...

Michelle