I was one of those players, I was with BRAVE up until just before their collapse. Trying to get us a foothold in nullsec was a tedious grind, and took a very visible toll on the morale of the rank-and-file members. We had some fun, but it was nowhere near as fun as the heady days of Rahadalon and the Syndicate deployment. But of course we were outgrowing that mode of play, but we couldn't put up a serious fight against the major sov-blocks either.
I used to be a line guy in CFC for a couple years. As cool as being part of historic battles was, the sov grinds really can wear you down. The propaganda also became painfully transparent to the point that it was cringe-inducing drivel intended to keep the meat grinder going. I'm not saying that was never its intent in the first place, but it certainly had more swagger in the early days.
Around when TEST collapsed I jumped ship over to NC./PL's side of the fence. It was far more demanding, but the game actually became fun again. When you have (at the time) the largest supercapital fleet in the game on short notice ready to back you up, it was possible to do stupid stuff like take a dozen guys and go kill some dude's titan on a whim.
Sov grinds were oddly more fun as well, because we were incredibly outnumbered in subcap fights. I recall defending one system against about 1200 CFC players, and our numbers were about 300. We'd switch between AHAC/Ishtar/T3 doctrines, with enemy fleets dying faster than they could reship from nearby staging. Good times, but even that turned into a grind after a while.
