Moontug is indeed a frowny face that he's not around anymore. Back when IRC was prevalent, he was one of those who constantly served as an example of how to be responsible with it and an excellent roleplayer. He was the first one who showed me emotes that weren't just his actions, but livening the atmosphere of the game. He and I were friendly at the time that the 'It's in my Belt' log submission was made; I was still pretty noob at the time, but he showed me even friends OOC can still kill each other.
Moontug was such an incredibly descriptive writer, as well as super chill in IRC (I really do miss the IRC room), and I think I learned a lot from the way his descriptive emotes brought life to the world, too -- something I also picked up on from Clegane and Socko (both of whom I also miss terribly as players, though I certainly know Clegane is polarizing).
I don't miss Bhagharva. I stand by, to this day, that what he was doing with his whole playing a Red Robe while staffing the Guild was pretty crooked. Nothing like having the same uber NPC guild assassin chasing you around the city with no regard to her own life, and even dying to soldiers a couple times in a row, until she got you, because you did a random break in on his templar's mansion. 
I won't lie, Ihsahn did do some pretty wildly lame stuff (though that bit about the Guild assassin is a particularly new low), and there was a fair bit of sleaziness to some of it too, but as a staff member, Bhag had a great ability to concoct creepy, fun, enjoyable plots, and I miss those a *lot* (he made a PC of mine vomit up a slug once, which I immediately wished up about as awesome, and Sanvean later emailed (or in-game mailed, back when that was a thing) a snippet of him from the immortal channel cackling about it). His conduct could've been better in terms of playing the game, but when he was just running it... it was good. It's the same reason I sort of miss Dyrinis, because while at the time it'd be things like, "oh great, another monster for no reason that's going to kill five PCs," *not* having those things around turns out to've been... well, they really did add something, I think, as unexpected as it was. It's only with their lack that it turns out there was some thrill and fun in having them around, and I kind of miss it. Current things are very exciting, because my god, *it's something*.
Sorry about Kholdarian. When I was newer to the game, probably in year two or three, there were a few posts in a short amount of time about how to deal with linkdead pc's. I was stuck in the Oashi mansion because of weird circumstances that I won't go into, and he was either linkdead or very afk, and I killed that PC in order to try and use his helm as a disguise to get out. He played another PC after that, which I played with, but I don't think he ever recovered really from that lack of consideration on my part. I probably turned him off from the game enough that he just left, which is a shame.
Awww! We were all newbies and did some kind of shitty stuff once upon a time, in all honesty. If it's any consolation, I don't think you did turn him off of the game -- I recall once a very long time ago discovering he had (or perhaps is still continuing?) to play, but I don't know if that's *still* accurate. He certainly didn't quite post-Oash, however, so you can wipe that from your conscience, at least. The two of them were great -- if I'm remembering right, aren't the wagon ruts that are STILL in the room description southeast of the bazaar from when one of them got hit by... geez, I don't even remember whose wagon it was, but hit and crippled or something? I remember them casually smoking spice in the Trader's, too, and being so totally intimidated by how flagrantly they were violating the law and didn't care.
Pai'ta, if it's the half-breed Drovian, was actually very close to my Haruch Kemad character, known to the public as Kiraam. That was one of the first elves where I roleplayed the internal struggle of being associated with a breed (even though it was a manipulative relationship; Haruch Kemad are literally close to no one). It kind of opened up the world of elven mindsets to me, along with direct tutelage via email and discussion with Zagren about how the eastside is organized and works, Haruch Kemad's place in it, all the eastside tribes and their roles and relationships, and how elves are disliked not because of the things they do, but because a well-played elf makes sure they win in every relationship/interaction (not necessarily to the other person's detriment). It's all just jealousy of the superior race, the elves.
If you're still around, pof Pai'ta, you had a large part to do with my current love of elves, so thanks for that!
That's definitely the same Pai I meant. I was playing a tween (I had literally special apped her in at age 10) Nilazi that was honestly kind of 'out' as a Nilazi, but was untouchable due to being the favoured pet of two templars that treated her like a mom and dad. My character *hated* her, and would stalk her around and stare at her and just generally be creepy and poorly socially adjusted. She was my third character after I started to 'get' the game (the first being the one that interacted with the two Oash above, and a second being a Tor agent that worked for Riandra), and did some amazing things that I don't think I can really talk about, still. She's incidentally also the one that vomited up the slug. Pai was great, though, I remember meeting her player back at an APM many a moon ago, but it's all sort of hazy after that.