I was getting ready to jump in with a "On story and RP, this is going to be heavily subjective" by-line... but reading over your thought here, I have to say that they are phrased almost entirely as objective commentaries on general principles and practices, and I fully support what you have to say here.

I will note that as of the latest patch, we do get portional XP for diffusing and resolving some situations, where before we did not, but it's not really enough to balance the scales yet.