The problem with how Tyrant is defeated.

Tyrant? He barely has the reigns on his three little little city wards.

No more or less valid then when you or anyone else makes them. To quote myself in my first response to this thread...

As for using both arguments, as you say... One deals with a 'what-if' situation where the villains could do what every person that plays them seems to want to do (I.E. 'win') and what I would want to do with my hero in that particular case. Both are not possible, and quite frankly, I doubt it ever will be.
The second deals with the hard fact that there are some things that this game will simply not allow you to do. Some of those things include, but are not limited to; Randomly slaughtering civilians. Jumping to some other dimension (besides Praetoria or the Shadow Shard) and eating popcorn while Primal Earth burns. Permanently killing the Hamidon (he just gets better). Jumping beyond the Sonic Barriers to play with the Devouring Earth out there...
The truth of the matter is, /neither/ the villains or the heroes can ever truly -WIN- the game. That's not how any MMO I have ever seen works...

His nuclear temper tantrum on the Magisterium Trial suggests otherwise

I don't play evil content.

He isn't an ultimate threat - just the biggest one we've faced so far - and the war to crush him and the loyalists also results in the biggest and most permanent victory over evil in the game so far.

I thought we were pretending that he only did that because nobody was home.

Then don't tell the people who do how they should feel about it. Thanks.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I have no problem with the concept of villains having to grudgingly team up with heroes every once in a while but it has been so overused, I'm sick of it. The Devs can write stories for villains, the arcs already mentioned and even some of the early SSA1 episodes were great for allowing villains to be villains for a change. Yes, we're still running around doing things for our contacts but for once, it was for our gain and not because some NPC told us to go and beat up (insert name here) for the 'greater good'.

We've had three new zones since Going Rogue (ok, two new, one revamp) and every one of them has failed to cater to villains. Night Ward doesn't even try to be accessible to villains, it just assumes you're there to do good. There's not even an offer of money or power if we decide to help out. And that was what finally made me throw in the towel and stop my account from auto-renewing. If the writers want to ignore the alignment of 40% of my characters when developing new zones, I can't be bothered to pay for them anymore.

I mean that he's always had the power to control his empire and his loyalist thugs - it's just that he never chose to use it, as he was happy with the way that they were carrying out their work

I don't need to - the game has already provided the moral lesson of Praetoria

I'm pretty sure that the Mercy revamp was done with some vague idea that it might be played by red siders more than blue siders - unless you mean the Atlas revamp, in which case weeping about it not being aimed at Villains seems kinda weird.

"Might makes right"?

Evil empires never last - freedom always wins in the end

Ah, my mistake. "History is written by the winners".

He had Praetoria entirely under his thumb until offworld meddlers showed up. The resistance could not have even begun to undermine his rule without outside help.

It's more like "moral lessons are written by the devs"

Well, until it loses again. That lesson might be better as "nothing ever lasts".

For reference, see: Oranbega, Cimerora, the Rikti

Now we're back at "Might makes right" again.

But that's what's so awesome about the Praetorian storyline - they actually let us smash the loyalists permanently - they're the first villain group we've ever been able to totally destroy.
This isn't foiling Reichsman's plans on the KTF, or stopping Recluse's schemes on the STF/MLTF, where whichever archvillain we happen to be facing does the usual "curses, foiled again" routine, and then just shows up again unchanged in future content - this is the total dismantling of an entire villain group, including the deaths of many of their major leaders and the devastation of their power base - the scale of the rout and defeat inflicted on the loyalists by the players is unlike anything else in the game.

No, just "fascists always lose"

Except not all of the Loyalists are evil. Many of them are true heroes with good hearts. So you're telling me that you enjoyed smashing other heroes?

Any loyalist with a good heart joins the Resistance in the tutorial

None of them are "true heroes with good hearts". They may not all be Complete Monsters but none of them are good people. The best of them are still guilty of the "banality of evil", silent complicity with unspeakable acts at the least.

Of course, this is just as true for the Resistance. The Wardens may have had good intentions but they were joined at the hip with terrorists who would blow up a hospital full of babies if they thought it would help the cause -- or, in some cases, for a good laugh.

If you want to find a hero in Praetoria you're going to need a shovel.

Not so sure that's the case, what with the Longbow using Flamethrowers, and the option for heroes to kill Aaron Thiery