[PrinzMegaherz]

I am definitly a sandbox player.

sandbox. I think that this is only one scale in what a player is, but it is interesting. The psychology of this might come into play with these balance/not-balanced arguments as far as whether or not something is any big deal. The gamers would consider any small imbalance as a major problem while the sandboxers would be willing to make some allowances if its in theme.

I think it is the other way around. Gamers are the ones to imagine ways to abuse game mechanics by twisting its original purpose. A sandbox player would propably forge a clam and give it to that special astral mage he wants to leave the capitol so that he does not run out of pearls during his journey, while the gamer builds massive amounts of clams because he can use them to gain insane magical power. A sandbox player would propably play Black Forest Ulm and take a Vampire Queen with lots of blood and Death and maybe a third path if he really has leftover points to spent. The gamer would take as many different paths you would never expect on a vampire just to make her invincible.

Just a small comparison.
Two children play with their sandcastles on the beach. Both are aware of the goal (destroy enemy castle), but they have a very narrow view of how to do this (hurling small rocks against the walls). Then the third child comes, is aware of the goal (destroy the castle), but has no restraints on how to accomplish his goal. It starts to stomp the castle with it's feets. The sandbox children start to complain about him using abusive methods, and it replies that they could have used their own feet to begin with, and that it is a legimate strategy if they are unable to build unstompable castles.