I think there has been a bit of a misconception as to what I am arguing for. My goal is not to make it so that the "good guys" get more exp than the "bad guys." I don't believe that such a dichotomy even exists. My argument is that, in most cases, how you choose to solve a problem should not dictate how much exp you get from solving the problem.
My current preferred method for dealing with the two people at the entrance harassing the elf is to try to talk them down (sometimes depending on spec/race that isn't an option) and then if I succeed I wait until the civilian is safe and kill them. This is a very specific case where my primary concern is the safety of the innocent and my secondary concern is dispensing justice which creates a circumstance in which I am power gaming despite not even wanting to. The added experience doesn't bother me that much and I no longer feel terribly strongly that it needs to be managed, but the difference between the core solutions is still there and is a problem.
If a character decided to rampage through the game leaving none alive in their wake, I would expect that characters level to be similar to someone who did a more traditional playthrough. (perhaps a bit lower since they likely killed a lot of people who granted quests without completing them) Conversely if I decided to go through the game harming as few people as possible (within reason) my player experience shouldn't be impeded either.
So it begs the question, how significant is the impact on play if people playing through the game get significantly different exp values based on how they decide to handle the situation? I would say pretty significant since it has already caused a big enough difference to where people playing through casually, including myself, noticed without provocation. The difference is within manageable levels currently, only causing certain encounters at certain times to feel more challenging, but this is a problem that need not exist and would be easily solved.
So forget about meta gaming, forget about good, and forget about bad. I think we can all agree that we don't want to feel punished for playing the game the way we want to play it and the current system does that for pretty much everyone right now at some point.
