Golden Girl

If you had, you'd know there's no subservience to Statesman

On the "Hero's Hero" arc, where you rescue Statesman from Tyrant, the storry summary finishes:

When you rescue him, Statesman says:

And Maria Jenkins, the arc contact, finishes off by saying:

And Statesman's debriefing after you complete his TF:

He doesn't talk down to us, and we don't treat him as our boss - there's mutual respect, no subservience

Because that's the way heroes and villains work - villains are all about power - getting power, holding power, increasing their power, and, importantly, displaying their power - they're all about controlling, intimidating and dominating other people, either as their end goal, or as a way to their end goal.
Villains are all about the last person standing - or at least, being so powerful that even if all the threats to your power aren't dead, you're too powerful now for them to trouble you.
As a villain, your fellow villains are rivals for power - and if you don't crush them, they'll crush you.
Villains are selfish, heroes are selfless - a hero doesn't look at another hero and see a threat, or someone they can control, or someone they can serve to gain enough power to eventually overthrow them - a hero doesn't want the people they protect to be scared of them and their power, and a hero doesn't expect to be rewarded for what they do - heroes do what they do because they have the power to help people.

Heroes want to preserve and protect, villains want to change and destroy - and from an MMO point of view, one of those mindsets is way easier to turn into a game than the other.
That's why you have Recluse as your boss - because there has to be a justification to the limit the game puts on your villain activity.
Now, the devs could have gone with an EVE style set up, and just had the Rogue Isles as territory and players could band together and seize, so there'd be constant warfare between the VGs trying to increase, gain or hold on to their power - but that would've required a very big emphasis on PvP, as well as making solo players and casual players less likely to enjoy it - so they went for a similar game set up to CoH, with Arachnos as reason players couldn't turn the Rogue Isles into insane free-for-all power grab.

And that's why Statesman isn't the "boss" blue side - becasue we don't need one - if you took out all the signature heores, and gave their TFs to non-super contacts, there'd be totally no difference to the game world - we'd still run the same missions - we'd help people, protect people, save people and so on.
But if you took Arachnos out of CoV, the red side game world would collapse - there's be thousands of villains with nothing holding them back from trying to seize power and dominate all the others.

So what you mean is that all Villaisn really want is a little garden to call their own?

I think that you maybe misread the joke a bit

As for how independant a Villain can be in the game, I think you'll have to accept that you're always going to have Recluse as a boss in some form or another, because that's the way the game's been designed and set up.
But being an enforcer for him could be made into a better experience - like he trusts you enough to give you pretty much a free hand - so you can still be a badass villain without totally being your own boss.
Like Darth Vader was just an enforcer for the Emperor, but he was still a totally badass villain, so maybe more feedom along that line might make red side players happier?

It still has that faded, dirty looking evil grass though, instead of the bright, clean heroic grass that's on the other side of the fence

Maybe that could be a new VEAT - an Arachnos Sanitation Offcier? Like Reclsue could be trying to find the person destined to clean up the Rogue Isles, and as you complete arcs and missions where you have to empty dumpsters, scrub off graffiti and unblock the sewer system, you'd see actual changes to the zones, with the current landfill look being retextured into something cleaner.
Sure, you'd still be working for Recluse, but at least your actions would be having an actual impact on the game world

I think it might have invovled some kind of jerk hacking on the devs' part, with him being duped out of his rares.

He's not your Schadenfreude - he belongs to the 5th Column.

But don't you get all those things already in some form in CoV?
Like civilians running away from you on mayhem misisons, and missions where you actually get to murder people? Plus, I'm sure Longbow attack you for more than just your fashion sense

I know - but like I said, it's an art style choice, and the Abyss didn't really show they were planning on changing it either.
Also, another problem is that what you're asking for would need an actual change to the zone geometry to remove the landfill look - which would involve way more wrok than just adding brighter grass or brick textures to the existing surfaces.

Well, ignoring the fact you've just said that you only need to look at mercy island to know what the entire CoV game world looks like, there's also the fact that the AE contains more than one red side outdoor map

The Rogue isles have been designed with a particular art style to make them feel grim and hopeless - it's not like that's just the way that it happened to turn out - and as they designed the art style to match the lore, unless they're planning a major villain lore revamp, then the red side zones aren't going to change their look.
Even the newest single faction zone added to the game, the Abyss, keeps with that style, so it's seems it's still their intention to keep the Rogue Isles looking the way they do now.

One weird thing I've been wondering about is that when he seems so big on the dark gleaming techno evil look, his actual outfit is strangely dirty and faded looking - like his armor plates are scratched and battered looking, when I'd have thought he'd have some sort of sleek dark chrome texture on them.
I think his outfit actually looks pretty cool and menacing, but the textures and colors just seem to make it less cool and evil looking than it could be.

No need to do that - the MA lets me tour parts of the Rogue Isles in safety
And from what I've seen, it does look pretty bleak and hopeless - but it's also a consistant look, and fits the lore of the Rogue Isles pretty well.

Ghost Widow and Sister Airlia already have it - and it looks like the Paretorian Belladonna will have it too

I think Grandville looks very impressive on the STF - the tower's huge

You know, making an AV that can be a challenge to a full team of 8 players isn't really cheating - it's just sensible game design
And signature characters in TFs are an important way of making them more unique - Recluse seems more special when we have to do the STF to fight him - unless you just happen to be really lucky with a Safeguard mission

And the darkest shade of gray is black

I'm not sure how much Praetorian content I'll actually be doing - like it sounds like the majority of the GR storyline is in the 1-20 stuff, so that'd have tpo be done via flashback - although I think we'll probably get a chance to beat up Tyarnt and his thugs at a higher level, as it'd be kinda weird to have them all capped at 20, especially as the current ones can go to 54.

I think the best you can hope for there is possibly PvE base raids as part of a general base revamp in the future, as bases are already your personal stronghold.
And they might add NPC staff for bases too, as that's been requested a lot, so even if you were still being ordered around by Recluse, you could come home to your lair and take out your frustration by ordering your own minions around

I really don't think the Rogue Isles will get a nicer look - especially as they've now retconend Praetoria to be a gleaming futuristic place, instead of the run down ruined dump that we've seen in the current Praetorian arcs - if they'd still gone with that look for GR, then it's posisble they might have changed the look of the Rogue Isles to make the two places more distinctive - but with GR now giving us a shiny techno evil setting, I think the Rogue Isles will remain as the dark and gritty evil setting.

Then quite hating on him if he's irrelevant

That doesn't sound that villainous - like genuine heroes would also try and take down a corrupt hero too.

Then you need to explore more - ther are even new badges in I17 just for doing that

He's probably just trying to show you what his hobbies and interests are, so the two of you can get to know each other better and maybe take your realtionship to the next level.

I'm sure AntiMatter will be delighted to hear that you think Neuon is a major player, but he isn't
And considering Dominatrix's family connections, and Chimera's job, they might be a little put out to be dismissed like that too

But I'm going to focus on the "some of these" part, because that could be interpreted as meaning that only some of those I mentioned are going to feature in GR

But you're already there - you're an Arachnos chauffeur

You've never done the LRSF or been to RV?

Those people are mostly the ones who can't, or won't, separate the character from the developer

Statesman's presence in the game is so small that it's quite easy to totally miss him.

They'll still be the same, and still be on the forum banner, looking down on you from on high
They're the face of the game, so you're always going to see them somewhere.
But if you really dislike them that much, then I suggest you only play blue side - the way morality works means that Statesman is way less of an in-game presence that Recluse