Blackfire, Hyzhenhok, and I bluffed hard when we wrote the "standards" for Casual and Advanced.

We knew we would never enforce them because that's a full-time job. But by using words like "moderated" and "strict", we decided to err on the side of scaring users away and created a mental barrier. Somehow the barrier still stands and Advanced is what it is.

"High Casual" emerged from users and is just a way of expressing a similar thing but within the Casual subforum -- the largest roleplaying block by design -- and with less of a barrier.

The main goal of the entire Free/Casual/Advanced strata was to give a dedicated subforum to the people on the edges of the bell curve (Free and Advanced). Any further subdivision of Casual would have to be entirely user-driven and organic. Hence, High Casual.

In the end, the distinctions are far more successful and have lasted far longer than we thought they would. After all, they were never actually moderated.