First of all, please consider these the ramblings of an old fool and
shouldn't be taken as seriously as if it were from one of the more insightful
readers.  As an 'old fool', I occasionally embarrass myself by going counter
to the adage: 'Tis better to be thought a fool and remain silent than to open
your mouth and remove all doubt.' [shrug-of-resignation]
     On the subject of Richard Lawson's latest work, 'The Nature of Love'
(his OOC-Ranma-who-do-I-love-what-if-sob-and-sorrow fic), I can only approach
this from two directions.
     Syntactically, the quality of writing, this work can only be considered
another in a long line of well crafted and engagingly written stories from,
IMO, a high quality author.  It's complete.  It's logical.  It pulls the
reader along a well thought out path to its, somewhat surprising, conclusion. 
As far as I'm concerned, it presents the case, I believe, Richard is trying
to make; love is asexual.  Therefore, I consider it a good story.
     Semantically, my enjoyment of the story, is another matter.  I read it
twice (once at work and a second time at home) but found I had to force
myself to complete it both times (the second was harder because I knew the
ending).  It has become one of the many, from many different writers I've
downloaded, printed out, read, and committed to the recycling bin.  Normally,
I wouldn't provide *any* comment (I had *that* strong a reaction) except that
I *asked* to receive it, so I feel somewhat obligated.
     My problem?  I guess it's just because it presents a Ranma I would
prefer didn't exist.  A Ranma who's become comfortable with his female side
and, in the end, decided to pursue his life from that perspective.  It takes
a character I happen to like in his Takahashi form and recasts him to explore
a very tricky gender-role conundrum.  In addition to the treatment of Ranma,
I got a *strong* negative reaction to Kentaro's apparent agreement to
continue his romance with the female side of Ranma when he found out that
Ranma's male side was only a warm water splash away.  This is a type of
'love' I'm not sure I've ever encountered in fiction before, outside a pure
homosexual perspective story.  Again, this doesn't make the story bad; just a
story I didn't enjoy reading.
     Possible ways if improvement?  I'm not qualified to make such
suggestions.  The only thing I will say is: I'm not sure that Ranma, faced
with the prospect of being stuck in his female form, wouldn't simply reject
any romantic advances, both male and female, and remain a socio-sexual loner;
willing to accept his fate but unwilling to exploit it on a sexually physical
level.  This story suggests him giving up on ever becoming male again.  An
OOC Ranma might.  (Heck, an OOC Ranma might become a prostitute, yakusa, or
WWF wrestler, too.  But *I'm* not going to start down *that* road.)  
     The story is what it is; a well crafted tale that's bound to attract a
number of emotional reactions.