Faction Requesting

Now before I start,
I entirely understand the reason behind faction requesting, to prevent single factions just being spammed, and to prevent retards grouping together to make a vile hoard of retards that will inevitably get raided and cry about it.
However, I fail to understand why such measures would be needed on such a small (or meduim) sized server as this one. On another note, it only seems like another way of the server keeping things calm with a bit of control, like the whitelist - but look where that went.
Any response is welcomed.

This Server When I First Joined Back In August 2011 (I Was N1TR0 Back Then)
Was Awesome, Now It Has Totally Gone Around Into The Ground. No Offense To Anyone Here.

I Am Sad To Say But I May Leave This Server Because Of It Because Now It Is Getting Boring.

Everytime I Look At The Number Of People In Minecraft On The Server It Is Always Under 15, The MAX Number I Have Seen Is 12 And That Isn't That Often