"I once convinced someone the Wounded Townsman was killing me."
OMG! Anyone who has played 5 minutes of Diablo should know that the Wounded Townsman is harmless. The begging can get on your nerves, but that's about it.
The object of the objective in open Diablo seems to be strapping on as many hacks/dupes as possible after joining the game. A god-moding town-killer will kill or crash out everyone present as soon as there is a free space to join anyway. (I've always wondered why PKs never come up with a hack that gets them into full games) So by comparison, Fetus and his pals look like LoLs. After a week or two of watching guys nuke monsters that they can't even see yet, the sight of players swinging swords at critters, or using a spell other than FB or apoc is pretty refreshing.
Personally, I'm lukewarm about how they're dealing with theft. I dealt by not having anything to steal, but even then, people often tried to modify my character with trainers. Backing up really doesn't look that bad.