I can answer your first question hobb, I personally marched thousands of troops from our lands to Templar castles that were fully equipped. I also saw 5 or 6 other hospitallers doing the same thing, before we went to war with Chaos or TKOV or FIDLGB (we were building up to push back into EU lands). To make it easy on the castle owners, we just dumped everything into the castle, and then they re-handed out troops and equipment as necessary. For the most part we were putting in more than we were taking out (at least I was). I'd dump troops in, and then was only running around with 500 troops and cavalry to scout around. When war came, I ran back to the castle and was equipped with troops and gear. The troops and most of the gear was stuff we put in, some of the gear also came from Templars...
The second I can only speculate is because these factions were much closer to the front lines. I heard leaders complain more than once they wanted more Hospitallers in the north taking over fiefs before our Allies could take them. I think the only reason for that is because we are so far away from TKOV lands, and most of our members aren't active enough to command armies (i.e. they can't check the internet almost any time day and night). We've had 4-5 active members marching armies around since the war began, you may have noticed there were more than 4 or 5 fiefs that Chaos, FIDLGB, and TKOV controlled.
No big conspiracy here...