The PS team has my sympathies to some extent, having taken time to bring more guildhouses on-line and receiving little or no recognition for it. Personally I thank you for again for expanding the PS world. I am also concerned if this has caused some any disharmony within the team, and trust it is not too serious.
However I also have sympathy for the RPers, but like UtM, would have preferred to see a more constructive approach to offering alternatives rather than the repeated and laboured criticisms offered.
Personally I lean toward RPers who utilise at least some of the game mechanics so my ideas wll tend to be based around those, but feel free to offer alternative ideas.
One possibility is to reward a guildhouse for the winner of a tournament. This could possibly be based on teams of 4 representing the parties interested (perhaps a mix including a mage), with last person standing winning. The winner's leader would nominate the guild (to the GMs only if it is secret) to which they donate the guildhouse (it would not necessarily have to be their own, but couldn't be an existing house owner).
Another possibilty is to run a quest/ series of quests where first past the post wins a guildhouse for a nominated guild. This could be a combination of using existing (simple) quests with quest hosts stationed nearby to add additional quest requirements. For example the quest host would ask a question relating to the quest just performed, which would need to be answered correctly before pointing to the next stage of the quest. Possibly, or alternatively, questions would be related to the settings/ books hence favouring those who know them best (the quest host could be positioned close to the books to ensure people don't merely read their own on-line guild libraries?).
Another possibility is to run a series of simple RPs similar to quests, but where the questions, answers and/or directions ar hidden within the RP. Dependant on how well the RP is played would be the amount of information learnt. At the end the entrants would need to answer a series of questions and possibly provide artefacts identified in the RPs. The winner would be to one with the most correct answers, with any draw being decide by a tiebreaker.
These ideas clearly need a lot more work, but hopefully provide some nuggets for possible ideas?