I am somewhat surprised that there are no comments on this topic. It is a topic that arises whenever a new world is being launched (mehhhh morale).
From my personal perspective: I don't think morale can be either a good or a bad thing. It's both, depending on which kind of player you're looking at.
It is bad in the way that advanced/experienced players are very limited in their options in attacking other players. They have built up this experience over a few months/years, and they want to take advantage of that. However, on newer worlds morale is blocking their progress, or gives an 'unfair advantage' to the player the morale is applied on.
On the other hand, it's a good thing for the experienced player too! When you are experienced, it becomes very easy to know when to do what. Adding morale to this will add a new challenge to the game. Because of morale you'll have to adapt your playing strategy, which could also make it more interesting for the experienced players. (they don't just have a walk-over-kickstart-mega-cool-fast-super-duper-launch) I personally always appreciated this 'extra challenge'. I believe that players saying morale is a 100% bad thing, are not experienced at all. In this game, to be called experienced, you need to know what you're doing in every kind of situation. Not the just easy 1v1 no_extras_games. You also need to be able to deal with the extra challenge.
For the beginning player however I see nothing else than good. When you are a beginning player, not yet familiar with the strategies of the game it can be very hard to survive. Experienced players are lurking everywhere to have easy kills (easy kill = easy growth). Adding morale to the world will somewhat protect the newer players from the experienced ones. Which is good for the number of active players (a lot of players quit in their first weeks of playing).
In addition to the above I would like to mention that I totally am pro morale worlds, however with some limitations. I see no point in morale on worlds that are over months of age. New players should by then be experienced enough to survive, and if not they should try again on a newer world (once more with the protection of morale)
Best,
Joris