This subject has really gone far afield. I never meant to cause anyone to look their noses down at players who spend diamonds. Everyone spends diamonds; if they didn't, everyone would have a ton just sitting there from the spire. I don't believe even buying expansions at the start of an FA is bad. If you have the money to give yourself an advantage, then I suppose you have every right.
There is something different about giving it all you've got and starting off at an advantage, where everyone sees your advantage, and coming in during the last few hours of an FA and buying hundreds of dollars worth of diamonds just to edge out the number one group. I see a difference in that. If you don't, then that's your method of play. I would never engage in it or, if I were the AM, allow it in my fellowship. (And just for the record, I am not accusing anyone, not because I don't know anyone who has ever done it but because I don't want a war.)
I just wouldn't want to win that way. But I'm not saying everyone else has to perform by my standards. Indeed, it's hard to even have standards in this world, with so many people thinking they must be number one at all costs ... a few of them even claiming they won when they didn't, just to avoid losing face (not that they had any face to begin with) ... but then, I digress.