Besides that, local ooc (looc) abusable in other ways too. People use it to try to steer the direction of IC events rather than just doing it via their IC actions.
I'm not going to suggest deleting the local ooc command, but what about an @option to turn off receiving such messages? Like the old thinks option, before thinks were just completely disabled barring IC solutions. People who didn't want to see them because of their OOC nature didn't have to.
This is a bit delicate because there can be very legit, good and important reasons to say something ooc and to receive that. So maybe the sender could be notified if they did ooc to <<>someone> and <>someone> had it turned off, just in case whatever it is they had to say was critical in some way.
It could happen, though even the lightning-rod use cases you're probably thinking of can be handled IC. I've done fade-to-blacks completely in character without ooc communication. IC unwanted attention doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be, handled OOCly unless and until it crosses or closely approaches the consent lines spelled out in the @rules. Other forms of distasteful RP also are 100% IC and there's no support anywhere in the @rules for objecting to them OOCly.
I suppose there's also the possibility too that the person with @options looc turned off who's being addressed with ooc to <<>you> could be notified that someone's trying to say something to them OOCly, in case they want to turn the option back on for the particular instance.
If someone were sending an ooc message with a very good reason, and the sender gets notified that the person they addressed it to isn't receiving LOOC's, I don't think it would be a bad thing if it were understood that the sender could fall back to xhelp and get staff to help with this. There can't be any downside to staff being made aware of whatever the situation is and taking action to support the sender, can there? If staff aren't available, the sender can always take theirself out of the IC situation in many ways, both IC and OOC options exist.
What about ooc's which aren't to someone? It's a non-issue, that's literally just ambient chatter. Don't notify the sender if people aren't getting it. If there's really a good reason for attempting to engage someone OOCly, they can and should just use to.
A lot of LOOC usage is perfectly innocent, innocuous and appreciated by at least some players. Not everyone would want to turn off receiving looc, and people would probably not be discouraged from using looc for the variety of harmless things they do use it for. But there are good reasons for players to opt out of looc, and if they did, there would be options and alternatives for those times when someone really does need to address them OOCly.