I also think that I should not be the only person to change my character's personality and behaviour. Instead, I am of the opinion that other players should be able to change my character's traits too. I feel like everyone only focusses on their own story, there is too much isolation regarding character development imo.
What does limb removal have to do with any of what you've said? Like. Breaking bones does exactly the same thing. So does beating someone up. Trauma. Etc. Regardless, my characters are also dynamic. The characters around them have influenced their development IMMENSELY over the time I've played them and I've been open to creating relationships and stories with lots of people.
Limb removal and murder are not the only things that equate to development/changing characters...
Last thing I care about seeing is someone at school casually bringing up with a teacher "oh yeah so I lost my eye, my left arm and my big toe to gang members" as though they're some sort of mark of development/good character writing that nobody else has. It. It literally isn't. It's just an injury for the sake of an injury. I genuinely have not seen a single instance where limb removal was justifiably motivated IC. It's just absolutely ridiculous.
it's been avoidable in my opinion. I mean none of my characters experienced that before.
Yet there are countless examples of people getting it done to them without them wanting it to happen. People that have literally been unable to continue playing their characters because of it, even. It's sickening- and for reasons that are ridiculously overblown in a narrative sense. The problem isn't the fact that it's 'hard to avoid' in the first place anyway, it's the fact that it's a possibility at all for it to happen as a consequence of MUCH less grim/cruel actions that's the core issue. The change in general just puts an emphasis on, again, consent, which is a GOOD THING.
Player CHOICE is extremely important and saying it isn't is just like. ???????????????? We're on an RP server, we're writing stories together. It's not just a game.
Speaking from my OWN experience: I myself got into a fist-fight on another character of mine and I ended up KOing someone in the street. I was then informed that they had majors on me. I was in disbelief, because it was a simple fist fight, no killing intent- heat of the moment brawl that happens all the time in reality. I checked the rules, lo and behold, it was correct. I was told beforehand by a friend that majors were only given if you used a weapon, not just from a fist fight. So I was absolutely shook reading it.
...Yes, I could have been meticulously reading the rules and avoided the situation in the first place, I guess. But that would've went against my character: it would've been OOC fear affecting IC actions, which is a BIG NO NO.
And given the spur of the moment anger induced fight that happened? The MUTUAL FIGHT, where both participants wanted to pummel each other into the pavement? A one time occurrence, that wasn't targeted like say, a bully constantly beating someone up every single day of the week? ...Yeah, no, going to limb removal for that is absolutely stupid. And given that I never really interacted with the person I got into a fight with AT ALL after the fight itself, had they actually removed a limb of my character like they were "entitled" to by the SRP rules, it would've just been a missing arm that served... ...literally no purpose. I would've probably just stopped playing the character for a while because trying to actually roleplay out missing an entire limb as a result of something so petty is just mind-bogglingly hard to comprehend. People really do not understand just how severe of a blow such a thing would do to someone's psyche, let alone a 16 year old student.
TL;DR: You can affect characters in so many other ways than just removing their limbs or killing them. Yes, you could avoid the situations, but it feels extremely artificial and forced to do so, when in reality conflict is normal and healthy and ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT ESCALATE TO LIMB REMOVAL.