Within any group, there are good and bad. I dont know of any one group that gets more abuse than server/admin/IRCops. Are they all hard working and responsible? of course not..they are ppl, and ppl will be ppl. Many who look "idle" are in fact working behind the scenes so to speak, to keep their servers and networks running and trying to get rid of the problem kiddies. For every one person who politely msgs them with a legitimate prob, there are tons who are verbally abusive and expecting things that arent allowed/dont need an IRCop to deal with. Many networks have channels where ppl can go to find help with services probs, to find an oper and have websites with info.
I dunno how cheery i would be to the 200th person who msgd me yelling "i gave him my password and now he stole my nick. you make him give it back you &^%$ (*&^%" And lets not forget the ones who follow them around to diff channels posting and msging constantly declaring their undying love, or how they are ever so wondermous and simply MUST be given IRCop status themselves right this very minute. Gee, that must be just tons of fun when you are in the middle of trying to solve a real prob.
To me, lamers are those who are rude, abusive, dont follow the rules, spam/invite and in general try to spoil IRC for everyone else. OK, lets add on the ones who go into help channels, ask a question, are given a source/command to show the info and then tell you "Just TELL me you stupid *&^%, i dont wanna READ it". There are many days when i wonder what happened to common courtesty
