That's an argument I see a lot when it comes to the discussion of decay. But I don't think those single random triangle foundations, which are an exception, are really a big problem that would justify the need for such a big change. Big areas being blocked off would also still be a problem as, again, twig barely costs any upkeep. It might drive even more players to build twig bases, ensuring that their base will still stand where they left off when not playing for a while, which then again leads to more lag and the server performance suffering because of it.
While automating the TC is an option, not every player will do so. Newer players might not even know about it, or others, especially casuals, maybe take longer until they have enough ressources for researching the needed parts, not being able to do so for quite a while.
I agree that enabling upkeep would strengthen the ingame market. However when visiting a monument that spawns diesel, (e.g. Water Treatmant Plant or Trainyard), or even checking them out regularly, in hopes to find some diesel, in most cases it is already gone. And I'm certain that some people camp those monuments to be the first to lay their hands on the diesel, especially when clicking around the shops and seeing a questionable amount of diesel being sold (for example, a couple of wipes ago there was a vending machine selling literally over 200 diesel - it feels like more and more people are just driven by having the most of everything). That would only become a bigger problem as the demand for diesel will grow.
But then what's the problem when they sell it anyway??
Well, first come, first serve. That might sound fair, but then again you will have those players who would (and be able to afford to) buy huge amounts of diesel, they would be able to build their ultra big bases or their towers all across the map anyway, no matter if decay is enabled or not. The diesel wouldn't be distributed in a fairly manner, as the need for diesel will be even higher then now, making it even harder for casuals to find diesel at monuments than it already is, with it being vacuumed away on the regular. And casual players maybe won't be able to afford enough diesel across the wipe, due to them not (being able to) playing as much, therefore having less.
Sure, relatively "poor" players could just build their base out of wood, as it is safer than twig but cheaper and easier to get than stone, especially when getting their hands on a chainsaw and maybe even a wood tea, but why should they be restricted from building their base the way they want to, in which it brings them joy?
Also, since wood would be a cheap alternative, it would just be another option for players to build their unreasonably big bases - the kind of players who plan on building their one-grid-giga-base will find a way to do so - big bases would not disappear, and they will still drag the server performance down.
Every playstyle should be taken into consideration when it comes to the question of wether to enable upkeep or not.
Just because some people have way more than they need due to hoarding, that doesn't apply to everyone.
Not every player grinds every day the whole day and has way more than enough like 4 boxes of comps or 3 boxes of guns by midwipe/the end of wipe, and I don't think that it is fair at all to assume that applies to most of the players. There are a lot of players who play casual for just a couple of hours to cool down after a long day work, who joined because they want to have a fun and relaxing PvE experience, instead of coming home from a shift just to take on another shift, farming for their base.
Of course it wouldn't affect those players putting 12+ hours a day into the game.
RustEZ Pure is one of my favourite PvE servers, having spent almost half my total Rust playtime on here, and I would love to see the servers grow even more!
But I truly believe that the population/size of the server and especially the "No Decay" feature are some of the things that make the server stand out compared to other vanilla servers, and that enabling decay would just make it more like any other non-modded PvE server - with the consequence of players that joined for that feature not coming back, and less newer players joining the server as there will be one big point less that would make it stand out.
