Edited to add some context for the idea:
We know we are well into the game’s death spiral at this point, and that overall it’s no longer a fun or playable game in many aspects for almost all players. If you want to debate these points, find other threads. They’re all out there, in abundance. Here’s a simple idea that I think will solve the most problems in the simplest fashion.
Diamond should be an exclusive, opt-in tier that isolates its players from the rest of the player base.
Right now, many aspects of the game are unplayable (or just painfully lame wastes of time) for most people, War and Raids being the best examples. Some positive benefits of this change:
It ends the behavior of cup-dropping.
It ends having to face 30 GM-Telluria-Vela every war.
It ends the wealthy exploiting and hurting the poor for their amusement (let whales bash each other exclusively).
Emblems started the process of making War and Raids unplayable, the shift toward massively overpowered HotM has accelerated the process.