You know, i think being so overpowered, is also just due to the mindset of SL, nowadays.
You can ask Kay how often Silver was cripple din the past. Far too often within a single week. And yet there was some sort of fairness between a newbie and a veteran. This existed back then. It was part of the community. But with time, the sense of Fair play vanished. Instead of finding middle grounds, people would insist on their way, being THE WAY.
And what is it that we do? We who are the veterans now? We let this happen. We accept this, despite knowing that we could change it. Yes, this requires work. Yes it means you would go and actually hunt for the Bijuu. You would need to roleplay and someone would need to keep an eye on their activity.
I do not think it would be unfair to hunt after some Jinchuriki. In fact, it would be a challenge, something that is also dying out on SL. We need challenges and events. We need a fresh breeze. We would have a chance now.
The Bijuu would still be up to grabs, only within character. Would probably need an in character council as well. As for the attacks, we can just choose 9 zones and make them smaller villages at the border of the countries. Or anything we can think of,a free field for creativity here.
Time to think out of the box, i suppose...Also if those who wish to claim the Bijuu only wish to do that in order to show off, then aren't they against actual Roleplay? If all they do is hoard them , for the sake of hoarding, then...and i apologize if i am harsh now, then they are perhaps no good hosts.
It would be easier if we had events and got exp for these. And if we all had the chance to put exp into stats and said stats translated into chances for something to work right....ah..dice would make this all easier at times...but now i am too old fashioned again, sorry. Sometimes i dream.
And sometimes i want a mini bijuu as pet...ahem.
Overpowered isn't a mindset, it's the natural progress SL has always done. Things were fair back then, as the manga was not quite developed. A newbie actually stood a chance against a veteran. The strongest attacks back in the day were like chidori and rasengan. In part 1, genin level sasuke could hold his own against part one kakashi.
But the manga got more op and so did the players, cause more was available. I remember when Susanoo appeared and everyone thought that was unfair and we should nerf. Now susanoo is almost laughable to some players. As the manga developed, so did we as players. I don't believe it's a mindset. Only way to go back is if you banned part 2 naruto, that ain't going to happen.
I among others don't have a nostalgia for the past. I remember it almost being lawless, which some enjoyed, but I didn't. I would fight vets as a noob, and they would try to kill and sometimes they would (Shinro did kill me, but voided it) but there wasn't that much mercy towards newbies.
As I have said, and Eric also reiterated, hunting the biju would lead to their defeat without a nerf or power up. Most players on this site, can beat a biju in less than 3 posts should they choose to rush it.
As for IC jinch hunt, it was tried and failed. People just hide themselves from hunters, it didn't go well.
As for biju being a trophy, it is true some players treat them that way ( I do) but numerous others do not and rp with their biju (Athos comes to mind)
I get wanting to do things differently, but so far SL has shown it won't work. What has worked consistently during the various eras of SL? A straight up fight for the biju. Worked with Zen and Rai's time, works fairly well now.
I'm being negative, but the things you propose would require such fundamental change to SL. It's been tried and failed to nerf everyone, Shadow tried, and his nerf wasn't even that big of a nerf.
Also for the biju randomly attacking, as eric stated, how would you decide which biju attacks who? If you make the Kyuubi attack a certain group or village, some one may think you're biased.
Only solution I could possibly see is banning having multiple biju (Good luck with that) and they may become less of a trophy. Or use a very old biju rule and ban the formation of the ten tails. Then players may not want more than one, as a benefit to collecting them is to eventually form the ten tails, which becomes obsolete.