Yeah, that's the idea. Make a player GM rank with no moderation powers. I'm talking observer, entities, pet, scripts, npcs... The more harmless things that can be fairly easily overlooked by a staff member and, at worst, can just be reverted if needed.
More staff doesn't necessarily mean better events. One or two players who are passionate about it could definitely pull off an interesting smaller-scale event far better than a large team of staff.
I don't think you understand what I mean.
More staff is actually needed (especially on main server events) due to the way some events.
Let me give an example of a event that happened that required that many people as an example.
A BMD event was hosted with about 8 admins attending. Why?
A) You need admins to ensure that the CP response is either minimal OR it is decent in number if it does come (admin Dispatch to curb them).
B) Needed admins for the guards of the BMD (could substitute with players but not many were on at the time so admins hopped in to help).
C) Need to ensure OTA doesn't freak out.
D) Need to ensure you have players to introduce people to the event (could be done by players only but with admin noclip I can find people hidden in peculiar parts in the slums).
D) An admin to watch over other stuff (like quests that we handed out).
In general you have so many admins not because we don't trust people to run events, its because SOMETHING /always/ fucks up and has to be patted out if you don't have an admin or two watching out for stuff. In this example, we had a guy throw a grenade at a group of rebels even with all this prep and admins.
Not saying all events require this much preparation, but some do; especially if your stepping on the toes of other factions.