Ok, this is a placeholder for how much I really want to explain things. This will be a very, very long post.
First and formost. What separates Reborn from other servers is the fact that it ISN'T A COMPETITIVE SERVER.
I know this from about a year and a half of ccoming here. Believe me, if you had been here a year and a half ago, NOTHING would appeal to ANYONE outside of Reborn. We had next to no tours. Very little regulation on tiers. No emphasis on Ladder. NUTHIN.
First, on the topic of the difference of Competitive vs what Reborn actually is, a community server.
A competitive server has all of what you listed for beta. Tournaments, Ladder, proper tiers. a highly involved competitive metagame.
A community server from what Reborn has shown me, is a server where a group of people like to wind down, and talk with others about other things. Reborn isnt just a pokemon community. We also play LoL, TF2, and many other games. We have forum threads where we can talk about what is going on in our lives. Most of the old members are Facebook friends with each other. I came here because a good friend of mine showed me this place, and I pretty much instantly fell in love with the people here. There was no one shoving their skill in others faces (Something which I have seen a LOT of on other servers). It's a chance for people to talk with other people and not be embarrassed about it, since you know, this is the Internet and all. The only catch is that you have to be respectful of others. Which is more than enough to make 75% of us happy. We dont want to be competitive. We dont want to have a complex metagame. We dont want to be like every other server. We want to be who we are and THATS THE SPIRIT OF REBORN.