So your telling me that if you go to a party of 40-50 people, after an hour or so of walking around and listening to conversations you still haven't a clue as to which people you should avoid, which might be interesting, which may have things in common with you?
The BBS and the arenas are pretty much the same. I have met 20+ people from the game, and while what they looked like in some case really surprised me the type of person/personality didn't not. Sure there are some who claim to have "personas", but I think you would be surprised, as they might that in most cases what you see is what you get.
Human nature is what it is, it doesn't change very much.
The Deciding factor in your example is How many people at that party actually engage in public conversation. How many do you actually talk to? 7?10?12?
Say you only hear 12 people in conversation, is that a good enough observation to judge the other 38 out of 50 people? I'd hope not.
Take Scorpion for example, if you were at that party, and you overheard scorpion's conversation of him foolishly trying to convince people that a p47D11 can easily outperform a f6f Hellcat, Would you judge me, someone who hasn't even spoken to you yet, because of his conversation? i'd hope not. I don't think you should judge the group as a whole by the stupidity of a few. And that few im speaking of is those who ramble on in chat.