[Brody]

I think the "consequences" are totally subjective and based on what a player considers the "important" work of an RPI. Personally, I think it's more important to be the fighter jockey or starship commander taking on the alien warfleet than it is to be the desk-bound bureaucrat back on the homeworld. So, in my games, you'll find that most of the top politicians/bureaucrats are staffers while the people who win the Medal of Honor are players.

If an admin is playing a fighter jockey who goes out and hogs all the glory? Yeah, that's pretty cheesy. But if the admin is playing a starship commander who gets captured by the enemy, thus giving his crew an adventure to rescue him - whatever. That's fine by me.