I think the reality is that getting 15 people online is hard for most guilds other than Crimson. While Lotus may not care about fighting battles at a great disadvantage, I don’t think that standard should be applied to every other guild. My guild has had 13 people online at absolute maximum, and even then we did not want to fight Crimson. Why? Because the scoring system is stupid, losses hurt too much, and it’s simply not fun to play an unfair, one-sided game. When we finally get some kinos and thaums and can consistently get 15 online, we may want to play then - but until that point, it’s just not fun. Even if we had kinos and thaums, if we were in Bad Apple’s supposed situation (10 people online sans chrono), I still don’t think we’d want to play either. The composition doesn’t have to be perfect, but there are clearly some required classes, and not having them is just fighting crippled. That being said, I really don’t think we should all just assume they can’t possibly have issues with turnout and composition, and are simply playing the 12 o’clock slot to dodge you guys at 9. From my understanding, they are a casual guild and don’t seem to be very strict with rules or recruiting, so I personally find it believable? Maybe I am missing insider knowledge here though.
Full disclosure: I have a friend from Bad Apple so I’m not entirely unbiased, but I am not in the guild nor do I really interact with anyone of them outside of said friend. I don’t want to reveal my guild and make them a part of the drama, but we do usually make it to top 10.