I'm a bitter old man - but mostly about certain niggling things, on the whole I tend to love EVE for being EVE.
[Wow, that provoked a generally viscious response that I caught myself on before posting...]
*ahem*
In regards to Alts and the RP discussion.
I have a number of alts whom I RP with, most are just for when I want a break from Math's headspace and to try and get to know my alts better.
IE: My alt that is most commonly used and well, is almost a second main now, is Durtha U'tgarde-
Now, Durtha is a mercenary by trade but because of a long-standing debt with Math'ra he is pretty much contracted to do whatever Math wants him to.
This means, that while in space they fly and fight together Durtha has wildly different views and ideas about the cluster compared to Math, but they are still allies and close friends - for the rare times I dual-box with them together the interreactions can be pretty amusing.
Now - While I have had the option in the past to send Durtha through towards the Minmatar styled RP I decided not to because, despite the best of intentions the temptation to simply meta-game the crap out of the duplicity between Amarr vs Minmatar is so huge, innevitably its going to happen.
So, while I like having characters as alts with pretty much opposing personalities - from an OOC point of view, having them ICly opposed (respective-factions) is pretty much Meta-Gaming, and I don't like it.