You are entitled to repeat information, however I had already suggested the reason, why Pipkin didn't get the expected soul shards, and he had also written that the Plarium team had told him this.
I had also already suggested that towns generating troops and so providing soul shards wasn't likely, and that I believed that's what VampsDD11 was anticipating when he suggested that long absent players town should loose their shields.
The pickups from derelict towns I would suggest is insignificant now, especially with the higher levels and superfast loaded resource tiles, even for a new account, compared to when I first started playing the game, when chasing after a few resources from a level 1 tile or hoping you wouldn't get hit was a major concern, not much gold around and no domain guards and plentiful other bonuses then.
I appreciate that a clan is going to pick up souls shards against game generated troops in a siege, but not if another clan sticks their nose in, which seems to be the basis of all the complaints on the forum about sieges being stolen.
I didn't say soul shards weren't available from sieges. I said expectations from sieges can be dissapointing when superior forces intervene in them.