So...here is what I ask every school:

[Student1980]

And don't underestimate the inherent and unstoppable drive to compete. You're all athletes, you know what I'm talking about.

There is no way two schools existed within the same distance that allowed them to know each other existed without competing.

[bushi_no_ki]

1. Always a good perspective to have. If they don't have a good free style sparring program, not worth your time.

2. Respect is vital to any MA. A little **** talking might be OK, but outright putting someone down to make yourself feel better is not MA. It's downright bullshido (I'm the master and you suck).

3. Every student is different. Learning at your individual pace is also vital to MA. Saying that everyone achieves X rank by so much time is the ultimate bullshido.

4. Tradition is good, but don't rest on your laurels. One of the styles derided most as bullshido was founded with one of the best concepts: MA is alive and should evolve with the practitioner as well as the modern social climate. Said style is still corrupted beyond belief, but the founding master did have some wisdom. The few good schools of that style do still show respect to many of the traditions while seeking to adapt the style to the ever changing modern social climate.

[vigilus]

On a tangent for a moment;
A pet peeve of mine when shooting is being told "Don't rest you're magazine on the ground when you're shooting, it will make your weapon jam". Bullshit. So sayith members of shooting teams, master snipers and special forces types to name a few. Thing is, people hear "don't rest your mag on the ground' bla bla and they take it as gospel. They don't test the theory themselves or even research it, they just go off what they hear. Then they tell others matter-of-factly.

Keeping that in mind;

I think one of the biggest shortcomings of people who want to practice MMA is that they are so anxious to "be" MMA that their willing to swallow any type of advice coming their way. More often than not it's from the camp of kata's are bad, tradition is weak! Believe that in itself isn't bad but the problem is people hear this and automatically pass it on as gospel.
OMG Yes tradition sucks RWAR! long live MMA bla bla. Their basing their opinion off of what they hear and then pass it on verbatem. There isn't anything wrong with choosing to dislike tradition or kata's for example, but atleast dislike it for your own reasons and not because someone else's opinion.

I think people believe they need to automatically disaprove of tradition, ettiquette (etc..) in order to be counted in the MMA camp.

People hear aliveness and start preaching it (which in itself isn't bad) but they don't understand it. Aikido see's a lot of that with new members joining then hearing the whole love and peace crap and automatically trying to preach it without understanding the origional intent or context.

[Uri Shatil]

1. Good

2. Good

3. This is something that you'll find in most places that don't compete as a team. It's the case at my BJJ school, but not at all the case in my wrestling team. If they don't have a reason for overworking you, they won't.

4. This is all about what you define as "history" or "tradition." I'd say BJJ has history, and I'd say Boxing has history. Submission wrestling has history (George Washington was a submission wrestler, I believe). Most arts today actually don't have a history that's more than 150 years old. MMA doesn't have its own history, but it has the history of BJJ, and the history of aliveness (starting from Kano, I'd say), though you said you weren't looking for that.

[meataxe]

I'm a romantic. I quoted Shakespeare.

"Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?
Come, let me clutch thee."