Legitimacy when it comes to leeching?

Leechers dont diminish the experience of the game for anyone.

You are wrong. In servers with low population the change in the game since leeching came about is obvious. Arch Mages/Bishops will not train with non leechers. Non-ultimate classes will not train, period. People that play the game have very few people to play with because training or putting any effort into the game is looked down upon. It has vastly diminished the experience of the game since training is pretty much the entire game.

Hacking and leeching both ruin the game for people that play correctly. I don't think one is worse than the other and it's not something you can really compare, but I do know that leeching has had much more of a widespread negative effect on the entire community in Mardia than hacking ever has.