Yep, it's fucking awful.
We can get the 150k together without a lot of trouble but we aren't the most active clan and sometimes pulling that cash together isn't easy. We play a lot of strat however, and that's kind of where the banners shine imo.
The reality is, the market is willing to pay 150k for banners, so that's their price. No one can really declare a faction real or not so... how do we deal with it?
I suppose a min amount of members could be used, say >2 members means you can get a banner slot. I purchased the last free peasant banner and I got it off a single Chinese player that had a clan called "Police" the banner was the power puff girls. Last time I clicked through A LOT of the banners were owned by clans that had one member only. Barring those people from getting banners should decrease competition for the slots greatly.