There is something poetic about "imagine if he had a wooden axe!"
But yes. WE can be devastating even for the skilled user.
I remember a staff on my old server, that was looking for a new plot in the main world. He wanted it to be remote so he teleported to a corner. He started marking with his edit wand (tree axe) but soon discovered it was all ready occupied so he teleported to the opposite corner. He soon forgot that his wand had all ready marked a spot on the opposite side so he smashed a second coordinate and spawned a block. Resulting in a diagonal block reaching 70.000 blocks to the first corner, but before he could undo it, the server crashed as it was a pretty heavy operation. The server didn't finish the job and no undo was available. We probably used a week to repair (rebuild) all the damage on the map using the weekly backup.
After that our developer made some WE commands with limitations, extracted or based on WE, we now had a WE lite version, that would not allow for more than 100000 blocks, in a cubic area.
Hmmm I don think it's possible to crash servers these days any more with only 70 000 block operations.
I think it might only be possible to crash the server when you really try to. Which again asks the question if artists that have worked here can be trusted?
And I'm allready suggesting limits to the area artists can work in and the amount of blocks they can edit in one go. Also artists only need a few of the commands, they don't really need brushes or anything. Further more I like this idea:
Ps. Perhaps there could be like a Senior Artist rank that old and experienced Artists who feel like they lack the leading skills required for Foreman and Designer could apply for? Or perhaps give WE to Foremen? They're on and working alongside Artists quite often. Or would that make the Foreman rank too similar to Designer?
I think that that could be a way to make sure that builders are truely trustworthy.
I am just saying that pretty much ever build server out there has world edit for their main building force, so why shouldn't we if we limit it as much to make sure there can't be much griefing done. I think the risk is worth it.