To be in alpha is cooler then to be freelance. When i were freelance (actually, i never been, i've been only in russian clans like [X51] where i was always leader) i had many problems with that some "important persons" from [DD] and [R2R] called my clan suspicious.
I weren't popular as admin and had 5-7 imposters that annoyed me and i couldn't do anything. To meet a clanmate in game was a great event: 3-4 players playing, mostly in different timezones from the clan.
Also, people who knew that im russian by my tag annoyed me with stupid questions. For ex, what i heard of stupid {DWK}Jeff{0} that said that im communist....
When i founded ALPHA, many peeps hated me because i started a new clan (not joining others), like SanityAssasin that now is in GODZ, he said 'alpha wants fame, but i'll make them infame' or something like that. Till October-november i was banned on 4-5 servers.
P.S. Now im not afraid that someone will ask for a clanwar with us, i know that there are players that can play and defend our clanname better than me and im happy to play with this clan tag.