@Tomppa:
I actually feel that these are a great boon. Free rest, free sendings, powerful gear (appraise +5 ring) are the reasons why I can pay a group of adventurers 1000+ gold for some plot related tasks (without needing to constantly power quest to keep funds coming in)
Well, one faction's perks may be more useful than another, but in my case they just showed how little common sense my 'employers' (not that I had wages or anything, in fact I paid quite some money into the resurrection fund, and by dealing out consumables to absentminded wizards) had as they were either a small improvement on skills I already had (2 more points of concentration if wearing a helm, a 3 lbs lighter shield), duplicated class abilities (some minor clerical spells 1/day, free rest if willing to make a detour), made no difference because of my class (reduced arcane spell failure), or even worked against it (medium armor on a ranger, a shield for someone with a deity whose favored weapon maps to a two-handed weapon (and has the ranger two-weapon fighting skills)). Free sendings would have helped, or access to the crafting areas (even if not using them actively, but just to be able to patrol them), or if they really wanted to provide something useful, either a weight reducing bag or STR enhancing belt/gloves/whatever would have made a difference. I wasn't even provided with a weapon..
But guess what, despite all that, being in the faction was still a lot of fun, because of the group of PC 'allies' (quoted, as for me there was more intra-faction tension than inter-faction tension) and the forum binding them all together and giving you something more or less meaningful to do when you couldn't be online but had some spare time to spend.
After all, I wouldn't be throwing so much gold around if there wasn't a real chance of actually getting something valuable out of it, right?
Yes, I was/am looking to get something valuable out of it, but to me (and my character) that wouldn't be 'loot', but soft things like helping characters change their ways/views, and players having a good time. I doubt I'm being very effective but at least one player is still having a good time.
P.