Commercial gamedev here.

I try to avoid the whole "it's our server, we do what we want" thing as much as possible (I've said it only a handful of times ever, and ONLY during big-ol-dramafests), but at the end of the day when all the votes are tallied, that's literally the case. I mean, we host the servers for other people to play on for free. It's not like we are asking much beyond "follow our rules and guidelines".

I haven't actually played on CM, but the problems people are describing are that you don't follow your rules and guidelines. People need to feel like they have a fair ground with well-understood rules, otherwise they start feeling like the game is "the devs win and you all lose".

My day-job game is fun. Like, super fun. I've been playing a bunch of it. I have never and will never make the slightest ingame change to benefit myself, nor will I show up as a super-being with special powers, nor will I do anything outside the abilities of a normal player, under any circumstances, ever. The single exception is that I can put a "developer" title on myself, and once in a while, I do, 'cause people like knowing the devs are playing the same game.

This is incredibly important for online games.

If you need to blow off steam, you need to do it in a different game; if you need to show off how awesome you are, you can do it in your game if you can do so under the normal rules.

Basically, you've got two modes you can be in, "player" and "game master". If you're the first, then you should be literally indistinguishable from other players, possibly up to and including using a placeholder name so people don't recognize you. If you're the latter, then you need to take some lessons from /r/rpg on how to not be a terrible GM.

I mean, if you saw the HOURS of work that go into the details of our new Xeno-sprites (coming VERY SOON) you'd be like "mother of christ, look at that".

People are going to super-appreciate this when it happens. But it doesn't excuse being a dick to your playerbase.