I agree with the flash crashing, disabling the players is a great feature and even after it's been enabled you only get a handful of people so it's not terrible.
I think the major issue lies with constant system messaging ie.. *player* has recruited *hero* and *player* has received *rune* and of course the arena streak. Simple fix could just be to tone down the messaging system so that only top heros recruited in the hero tavern are displayed (same with ruins) and players that go on a streak in the arena are only displayed in intervals of 25 or 50 as opposed to seeing player is on a 10, 11, 12, 13, etc win streak.
As far as noble lady sacr3d.. try clearing your history/cache a few minutes beforehand. The noble lady is always hiding.. I've been able to find her 5 times within the hour she's around


