My suggestion was a 2 point penalty, not a total block or something outrageous. I don't mind the option to mix (personally I think the justification is pretty tenuous, but whatever), I just think it should come with a penalty. Really I think there should be a bonus for keeping faction pure, but since the designers decided in the base rules to flip that "bonus" around and make it a penalty for not restricting yourself to a pure build, I'd take a slightly higher penalty, or more of a bonus added to the current penalty. I am hoping we see changes come down that encourage more pure builds.

I don't actually see *much* mixing at my venue, as the locals are mostly ST diehards who would prefer to keep their builds pure, and the out-of-towners I only see when I can make it to the Dominion War events (and I missed months 4 and 5 after they changed the dates at my venue to make it more convenient for the visiting players, who are the majority of our DW participation). So the list of cards that are used out of faction "too much" at my venue is pretty short.

Mine too. We have about 10-12 regular local players for the OP events. Two are loyal to the Federation and have low level faction purist tendencies, a Klingon player who doesn't care what others play, a dedicated min/max player, everybody else just likes to play a variety of builds and don't have any strong opinions about faction purity.