So I wrote a reply to this already, then got distracted and forgot the tab ....then lost it
Anyway I was thinking of adding an interim rank that is before Artist/Architect, something like Carpenter, need something with shorter rank title. They would get more fly time per flydisk ... this would allow staff and me to more easily bump players upto this rank after they have gotten to member and have shown they have some building potential.
For Architect/Artist well they'd be further up in the chain and the requirements would probably remain around the same level/quality () They could get a few more perms (builder kits, multiple homes, etc) permanent fly would remain. However creative mode, I mean its not so much giving creative out to really good builders, loyal supporters who have been with the server a long time and vote all the time.. but to make it part of the rank well no for many reasons which I could go into, one being its a donation perk, the other being its bad enough with abuse and constant pestering for ranks by players who don't exactly deserve the ranks they ask for, without me adding such an incentive so openly would only encourage that.
Anyway I have some other news although its not creative, I'm thinking of sharing a macromod script I made, its basically what I use because I generally don't like creative mode much .. just about everything about it actually, apart from the pick block mode.. which is infact the only thing I love about.
Currently my script works similar to creative mode, where you use [mmb] to select a block you are looking at, and it gets added to the quickbar slot/ replacing currently held item.... so you can easily use that block for building. However currently it uses /give /i command to give me the item stack. My plan is to make it replace your currently held item with a picked block you already have in your inventory..which being an admin isn't exactly motivating me to get around to doing that part of the script
So you just need an inventory of most the common block types, and you pretty much have the survivalist equivalent of a creative mode. Anyway probably shoudn't have mentioned it because I have no idea when I'll get around to finishing it, got to many other things to do.
Also not currently possible is region protecting an area, and allowing a restricted creative mode inside of that area.. maybe this could be done , however 1.4.6 broke plugins needed for doing that, otherwise I would see if that might be viable option.