> It does strike me as odd that people who run servers don't get o-lines, but a random group of people do?

IIUC it's the staffers/opers that actually run the servers - monitor health, manage the OS, perform software updates, manage ircd, debug issues, cordon broken machines, etc. That's the bulk of the work in order to keep the things actually running. The alternative, providing a server in exchange for powers on the network would clearly be an exchange, not a donation.

Plus, I'm pretty sure many machine donors don't want the extra work of maintaining the entire IRC/software stack, and are quite happy to exchange some spare organizational resources to a good cause. I know I would much rather donate spare rack capacity than to also spend hours maintaining yet another service.