Actually your entire first paragraph in your response (and it was a response, not an independent thought - that is the first indicator) was just putting words in my mouth combined with an absolute, contrarian statement on a matter of my opinion. That's not a characteristic of an open, helpful discussion. And while I'm not the type to start bandying about accusations of personal attacks, it didn't contribute to the post at large either. Not to mention you've posted twice now without a bit of on-topic discussion to your post. If you're no longer contributing, then what are you doing?
But if someone does take negatives to compensate for the cost increase the positives give, there's nothing wrong with the GM recognizing that. And even if you're solely taking negatives, then you're still using them to compensate for something (namely the extra points in the base 5 properties that you don't feel you could otherwise afford).
Yeah, exactly. And I said NLQs should come into play too. But I think it should only be as is appropriate for a 200
Y/mo. inconvenience (or whatever they cost), where as others have indicated they think it should be as is appropriate to counter-act the posi's taken. That they're purchased independently means they should be enacted independently.
If the only consequence you get for negative Lifestyle qualities is "you can't bring dates over", that's an awful lot like taking Sensitive System on a character that'll never, ever get any ware ever - min-maxing. Roleplaying actual consequences to your choices isn't being punitive, it's being fair.
I forgot about the can't charge EC things (never played a big-time rigger that needed to worry about that), but otherwise, there truly isn't that much more to those NLQs and there's nothing wrong with that. Green Plan you can't have a higher than Medium Entertainment or Comforts I believe too (but it does preclude those Lifestyle options), and CHN isn't necessarily your fire-alarm (could be your thermostat is on the fritz, or your vac-bot, or your alarm clock, point is vast majority of it's effects are not mechanical), Poor Condition is truly "it just gets warmer when it's hot and cooler it's cold, plus there's leaks", no mechanical effect at all. It adds to the flavor though, so what's wrong with that? I love messing with LQs, it adds character to the setting and provide good ways to liven up the story, but these aren't supposed to be as big a deal as PC NQs. That's really the main point for me.
Now regarding your philosophy on Sensitive System, this is a topic that has been discussed at length elsewhere, but the short of it is, if it eliminates a possible legitimate path from your PCs development, it "should" be allowed. In that there's no logical reason to not allow it. A Hermetic mage can benefit from 'ware, just like anyone else, that your PC Herm has no intentions of taking 'ware shouldn't factor into the value of the Quality, or give you logical reason to disallow taking it, it still eliminates a viable path so it should still be worth something. Same thing with NLQs, their value isn't always in "how can I screw over my player here", sometimes the value is simply in the Quality itself.