It's also hard to hold a proper conversation if the whole group of eight characters is in the same room together. Interaction works best in smaller congregations and separating the characters a la [@Leidenschaft]'s proposal means that most of the characters will have a chance to interact with someone they haven't talked to yet, save Gaela and Kiralla. 

Additionally, and this is just my personal opinion, I didn't join this RP to have weeks of dialogue. We're a group of criminals forced to complete a mission together. I'd like to get to the mission bit and then have characters bond through action and mischief and all that good shit. Dialogue is easier to write if our characters have something to talk about anyway, e.g. after a good scrap or in the middle of an infiltration operation.