I think it’s a grey area that’s not totally black and white- “Off-meta” plans (let’s be real here, these are paradrops and split drops, sometimes both at once), are not inherently griefing, but everyone and their mother knows that these “off-meta” plans have a much higher % of a full-blown wipe where everyone dies instantaneously. As such, there’s a blurry area between it being a cool meme, and literally legal griefing. Where the actual line is, depends on each person.
Do people enjoy it? Every once in a while, sure. If CO McDouble is a well known guy who people like (due to running many genuinely good rounds), and proclaims he is the God-Emperor, and that we must gloriously paradrop into a hostile, surrounded area with no support to die in 30 seconds, I will worship the ground he walks on until I die (exactly 30 seconds later).
Will people despise it if it’s done too often? Yeah. If CO McDouble’s evil twin, CO McChungus has done the funny paradrop 30-second wipe 75% of the rounds he’s on, I’m mutinying his ass or disobeying, because it seems to me that this guy isn’t trying to have his occasional “haha funny off-meta drop guys, okay now let’s have 8 good rounds with me”, he’s going “I’m enjoying wasting everyone’s time by forcing them to spend 90% of each round getting prepped just to die and then suffer through a 0-marine hijack, and I’ll keep doing it.” Obviously it depends on how it’s done- Bob Cross made awful plans, but somehow everyone still loves him because he managed to play a funny character that made the round enjoyable in some way, and not pure slop.
But even some people just hate it unconditionally- And in my opinion, you can’t really blame them. Some people roll spec for the first time in 3 days, and then they get fucked by an off-meta drop where they’ll probably die instantly without firing a shot. Some people come back home after work, are exhausted, and their one round of CM ends up being literal slop because some guy thought it would be cool and enjoyable. Even if they had good intentions (or bad), it doesn’t really matter to them- Their one round was a waste of time because of it.
Overall, I personally think off meta drops are fine if you don’t go overboard. But there are going to be some people who’d rather they just get axed completely and I can see where they’re coming from, even if it seems a bit too extreme.
I don’t think @Harrysno is necessarily disagreeing with you, @Axyinious - Harry said that the issue was people doing those plans over and over, not the plans themselves- Which is probably the majority opinion, and it also falls in line with what you said.