I feel sorry that you apparently only have known folks with a lack of ethics and morals. Not everyone is like that.
Let me point out some of the corruption that you feel was limited to a few.
I saw a GM place a fireplace in a counselors home back in 1998 long before fireplaces came into existance.
I saw counselors go to dungeons while on duty and scope out parts for future play on thier shards. Instead of answering calls--but as favorites of the SLC they were allowed to not answer calls thier whole shift.
I used to sit in the counselors IRC channel and listen to Shard Lead Counselors tell others about the exploits they used in house breakins and other exploits.
I saw counselors help friends on different shards as scouts.
I saw corruption from IGM's and Seers. That is why they shut down that program. Many of those same seers became EM's--wonder why there continued to be corruption?
People seem to forget the gm's that made gold for friends and homes and all was sold on ebay for real life cash. Remember the GM that sold several castles on ebay on different shards?
There were several articles back when this all happened about people sleeping their way to the top--as in SEX. There were also articles about abuse in paying some people and not paying others. Like a lead counselor getting thier son paid as a assistant with no experience.
Maybe some of the people that post here that were counselors or companions had some good experiences. Yet I saw corruption all over the place.
How many times did we read after the programs were closed about companions abusing thier powers?
The system was flawed in many ways, yet people like to remember it as glory days in UO. I quit being a counselor because of the corruption I saw.
I will ask a question to all you counselor fans out there---do you feel they helped the game of UO as customer service reps for EA/OSI? If so, then by statute, they helped UO with the servicing of thier pay for clients and were not compensated as REQUIRED by law.
If you don't think they acted as customer service reps that helped the game then you should never complain about GM's not showing up nowdays. Because having someone show up in person should not be worth anything. Because if a person showing up is worth something then counselors were worth being paid, by law.