Jan,
I wanted to stay out of the forums and these discussions for the time being but your post made me react 
If you take literally “in-game economic advantages than they would ordinarily have, through the use of real money or the game’s internal resources or functions” than everybody that leases / sells and accepts aircraft for less than 100% is cheating. Because that would be the literal application of such statement to a 10% aircraft lease or sale. Let’s take an aircraft buy at 10%. You buy a 70 million aircraft at 10% while you have 50 million in a bank. You now have an aircraft which you otherwise could not have purchased if you purchased it from the manufacturer, because you would need to pay 100% price. SO both seller and buyer have now broken such (illogical) rule Or you lease 20 cheap aircraft from alliance member at 10% while if you leased from factory, you could lease only maybe just 3. You have now received in-game economic advantage through the use of game’s internal resources. But here, nobody says a thing, because the fleet management allows you the select aircraft sale/lease price in 10% increments, from 10% all the way to 100%.
The moral of the story is you cannot have your cake and eat it too (for those who do not understand this, you cannot have it both ways).
The same goes for stock buy/sales at +/- 10%, the game physically allows it, so if you generate a profit from a stock trade you have actually used game’s internal resources and functions, and you would not have otherwise generated that profit. This goes on the same for other actions that you can take in airlinesim. Actually half of Airlinesim gameplay could be in violation of this rule, technically, the way it is worded.
For example, a player could accuse you of cheating because you have interline with Airline X, and therefore, you get economic in-game advantage of more booking than you would otherwise have if also the other player had the same interline with Airline X (passengers would then be split between you two in theory). Also, a player could claim that you are cheating because you get to rent terminal at AS$7.70 per passenger while he has to pay AS$11, and had it not been for a friend who rented you the terminal (and who does not want to rent it to your competitor), you would pay more and thus are getting in-game economic advantage through the use of game’s internal functions. Or that you charge more for larger seats and therefore can fill aircraft faster and even more profitably… it does sound silly, doesn’t it? But the way that supposed rule is worded, you are in fact cheating. That rule is so ambiguous that it can be applied pretty much to anything in AirlineSim. Name a “normal” action and I will counteract with claim how exactly it is, in fact, breaking that very same rule.
Of course, an argument can be made that there is a difference between how action / game mechanics is intended to be used, and how it is in fact, used. Well, in real life Boeing 757 was never intended to fly Trans-Atlantic, yet it is doing exactly that in heavy numbers for American, Delta and United. In Airlinesim, the game mechanic (aircraft performance) allows you to fly farther than you could in real life, 737s and even 321s are used on Trans-Atlantic. I can bring up a good case that this is in violation of such ambiguous rule. So even if we take “as intended - as used” argument, we get back to the cake … you cannot have your cake and eat it to. You can not say not intended but possible and fine to use for aircraft performance and operational part of Airlinesim, yet claim the opposite for accounting and financial part of Airlinesim, saying not intended so not fine.
The mentioned rule has such a shaky wording, it is so ambiguous, that in all practical terms in Airlinesim, it is absolutely useless in its current form and wording. Was this a law in real life, it would have been struck down already 10 times a long time ago.
5/800/805/2000 … those are just numbers that really do not say much. If a certain action is not prohibited but physically allowed by the way the system is designed, that means there is no rule breaking. Now, that there is no rule breaking does not mean the outcome is a “right thing”. But we must separate between what we wish should be prohibited and what is prohibited (or in reverse, what is allowed and what we wish “only should be” allowed).
In real life, if there is a tax loophole, and authorities find it, they close it and enact a change/amendment of law.
I find it really necessary that certain areas and behaviors be more specified. And yes, they can be specified on a case by case basis as they “appear” and are reviewed.
In real life, there exists a (legal) concept of Ex Post Facto. This basically means that retroactive punishment for laws enacted now is not allowed.
Germany, for example also subscribes to this legal doctrine, as Article 103 section (2) of German’s Basic Law (constitution), p.89 states that an act may be punished only if it has already been punishable by law at the time it was committed (specifically, by written law, as Germany follows civil law).
The correct way to proceed in any UAB case where we do not like the outcome of action but the action in itself did not break the rule, is for the rule pertaining to such specific action which we do not want to be repeated by others in the future, is for such rule to be created and published in some easily accessible “rule book”.
However, the player who engaged in such action cannot be punished for such action at that time, we must live with the results, however much we dislike the results. That is the legal doctrine of Ex Post Facto. The new rule does, and can have effect, only from the moment it is published, for any future actions. That is the correct way to deal with any cases now and in the future that are brought to UAB, and where no existing rule was directly broken.
This is reflected in another legal concept and doctrine, Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege. (Latin, No crime (can be committed), no punishment (can be imposed) without a previous penal law). It is a basic maxim in continental European legal thinking, authored by Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach as part of the Bavarian Code in 1813. This maxim states that there can be no crime committed, and no punishment meted out, without a violation of penal law as it existed at the time. This basic legal principle has been incorporated into international criminal law. It thus prohibits the creation of ex post facto laws.
So for as long as UAB actions are sort of “airlinesim criminal trial” because a player can be accused, needs to defend himself, and can be punished, meaning UAB is a virtual criminal court of Airlinesim law, where the law are published rules, the “airlinesim’s court of law” should also abide by the Ex Post Facto doctrine and Nullum Crimen Nulla Poena maxim.
As in most aspects of life quality is important, not quantity.