I've never heard of Laila before now but she sounds fun.

If it helps to prove that I'm not
just interested in getting free stuff for my newspawns, I'm going to say again that if there were more leaders who actually RPed being close-fisted or extremely strict or just plain mean, I'd have enough fun with that to make the extra work not matter so much.
Thinking about it more, I think most of my newspawns just wind up feeling unfulfilled because it never seems like their town has any actual need for them. There's no really necessary job to do or niche for them to fill, so they just wander from one batch of pointless busy work to another feeling out of place and unwanted, until eventually they switch gears to trying to get everything they need to be independent as fast as possible so they're free to pursue their own goals or help others who might be stuck in similar situations.