I haven't completely developed this and there are some obvious drawbacks, but I wanted to put a new idea for flagging out there. What if this nebulous concept of 'flag respect' was enforced by the program itself, preventing a flagged player from attacking or being attacked by players placed above him? For example, if a player flags for 3rd, then that player will no longer be allowed to attack the 1st or 2nd place players. Likewise, that player cannot be attacked by the 1st and 2nd place players. The war would still be on between this player and the other players placed 3rd-7th.

Some holes:

- a player could ninja into the 1st place area, flag for 2nd and leave the 1st place unable to reconnect.

- The leader could get stuck after getting blocked by a flagged player.

- When you are the leader, you can't go on an ego trip and decide who gets what place. (wait, that's one of the benefits of this plan)

I'm sure there would be some new strategies and ways to exploit the system, but I think this would eliminate some problems with the current flagging system.