I'm super guilty of helping push the era of rules lawyering and pacting and such, but that being said Requiem's point about getting a group together and implementing your own will is pretty on point. We fought a LOT of wars over our policies back on those days and my former alliance still wears a target on their back for it :D

Also just want to touch on "an untagged player who is likely new to the game and quickly gets disgusted by being continuously farmed."

We actually put in some mechanics to help direct new players to solo servers (Express and Tourney) so they can learn the game before joining the shark tank that is Alliance. My expectation of Alliance is that you should be part of a tag or at least know what you're getting into. I think we can do better at this (and will) but the notion that people are joining Alliance and getting farmed as an untagged country and quitting is not something I've really seen evidence of in years. Even back in E2025, a lot of the untagged fodder was multies and such.

Anyway, if you like the game but got tired of what you're doing, try changing up your focus!
When I joined the game, I played in war tags for a few years...
When I got bored of warring, I joined netting tags and learned to netgain...
When I got bored of netgaining, I moved into leadership...
When I got bored of leading, I built tools (which eventually became Boxcar)...
When I got bored of Boxcar, I rebuilt the game (that one was sorta forced on us :p)
The key thing I was focused on changed half a dozen times over the years. I'd recommend anyone else who feels like they're in a rutt try the same thing!

But I'd expect that most people that are still playing have followed similar ebbs and flows and changes of focus. That's part of what has made this game enjoyable -- the ability to do so many different and complex things within a fairly simple underlying game.