Right, and it says that right there in the article that "database partitioning" had long been around but they needed a word to explain it within the fiction tha

Right, and it says that right there in the article that "database partitioning" had long been around but they needed a word to explain it within the fiction that would make sense in the game. So I'm not sure how this observation you that you're making about some "syndrome" is at all relevant, unless you're trying to make the case that UO was a counter-example of the phenomenon.