Almost all true, Liquidninja.
Actually, there were also guys complaining about the very slow start of the mod, and they asked if it would be possible for a faction to rise very soon on the game. That's why wicked coded the two heroes of custow to start with very high relations with the town (kind of like 38 of relations, 40 being needed for a NPC hero to claim a settlement). So, that has nothing to do with the high charisma of the heroes.
As a matter of fact, I don't have a clue of how it is on this last version, as I've never had the time to play it, but on the early editions that's how and why it worked like this.