Well, I think many of the people advocating making uplinks pretty much useless (by either limiting people to 1 active, making them take up even more cpu/pg than they do now, only being able to have 1 active link within a 100m radius... etc.) don't generally play with organized squads or teams, use uplinks themselves or even really play this game anymore (which is the case for many of the "vet" players quoted by the GNN twitter).
Speaking as a logi, and not a cal logi, an actual logi, I actually do think uplink spam is a problem. But not in the way many of you suggest. By spamming I'm referring to idiots who just want free warpoints and will drop a suit's worth of links in a cluster before switching to their actual combat suits. Or when people who will mindlessly drop a link right next to an active one in a good location, rather than finding a new spot. So yes, maybe some sort of a radius in which only one link can be active would be useful to stop this sort of behaviour, but 100m is ridiculous, even 50m is way too much. I'm talking more like 10m, maybe?
In my opinion there is absolutely no need to increase the cpu and pg requirements of the links, they are already a drain on a logi's suit (as someone who plays a lot of pc, I already have to sacrifice a lot to be able to always have links on my suit to be ready to drop more as needed, as that is the role I have chosen).
I don't run around in suits with 3 or 4 sets of links equipped, I have never considered to that to be particularly useful even at the beginning of matches, even though I know some people insist on doing that. In fact, one of the improvements to uplinks could be taking a look at the proto tier, I think maybe there just are too many different types of links? Allotek Stable, Ishukone Gauged are great, they are useful specialized variants, but maybe 3 different Imperial ones (+ 1 AUR version) is too much. Also, the AUR Carthum Abyss has always bugged me, there is no isk version of it... Maybe it could be replaced by the squad only variant, with fewer spawns but comparatively lowered fitting requirements, only 1 active allowed, that assault players would probably be happy to run (as the current proto links are "so hard to fit").
A team quota for active links would be bad as well, it would absolutely encourage spamming, certain type of people would just drop as many links as they could as they first spawn, and then no one else would be able to deploy any useful ones for the rest of the match. Now that is really only a problem in pub matches, which is probably all the OP has experience of anyway... In a PC match that shouldn't be a problem, and the thing about friendly fire is that it also applies to blue equipment.
I do agree that drop uplinks could do with some changes, but nothing nearly as drastic as some here seem to want. They are a working mechanic that is a part of this game, and effectively removing them from the game would certainly change the game, but I disagree with those that think it would be for the better. I already detest having to spend at least half of any pub matches running (or even driving) around these huge maps trying to find something to do, having to make my way across half the map every time I respawn would probably be the thing that would finally make me quit this game
