Loryen
The one suggestion that sort of did, the "ghosting" which limited a neutrals ability to interact at all with anyone participating in the combat only half addresses my concern. While they then cannot be used to target assist, they can be used to gather intel about the enemies formations and personel, which could be a slower version of target assist. Additionally, I feel "ghosting" is unrealistic and would need some sort of lore explanation that is beyond my scope of imagination.
well, if we go look at the ore opwars themselves are very hard to explain as there's no talk about anything like it in the lore of the New Lands.
Of course in the original Ryzom concept no such thing as outposts of pvp battles (apart from duels and arena events) existed, this was all added later without the lore being changed to account for it.