Apparently, it was stable in early partake without those rules of balance, no problems. And all changes when...
Nevermind the nostalgic stuff, in RP #1, everyone relies on their sense of direction and always prepare a trick in their hand, regardless of the situation. So everyone always have to prepare for worst case scenario. All characters are made with preparation and risk in mind, what would occur and what might come to pass.
As a matter of fact, those rules of balance comes when RP #1 comes to it's closing phase. Back then *cough* some chaos occured that forced those rules in place. If it weren't for those mess, things would be much easier.
The ones I consider extremely dangerous, since the late of RP #1 is the fact that there are too much factions, why cause players to drown into confusion due to the excessive colors used by the very same players, so I insert the limitation rule.
As a matter of fact, if you want to call something OP, there's nothing could be say as truly OP, since possibility is virtually limitless, it's just that how you want to play in the flow, being deceptive and extremely tricky in putting your schemes to let your opponent shocked when it come to pass, while preparing to counter their tricky surprises as well in mind. That's how it works before those rules officially set in.
I'm fine with RP #2 balances and such, but since I strive to recreate what RP #1 have and what makes it so amazing rather than RP #2, I have to stick to the aim not let it miss.