Actually they have, in fact Caspian has previously said that he "somewhat encourages what people consider botting" which can sound bad, but he's trying to say that he wants to see people get creative and communal with scripting. As the scripts evolve, the game feels less ... "botty" and "NPC infested" and more natural.
Even if you have a fraction of the population using scripts, the world is still very much alive and ever evolving.
As far as I know, the answer is yes. If you can activate scripts while offline, then the only difference between activating a script while online and offline is exactly that... whether you're offline or not. It would be almost pointless to deny scripts to online players if all they need to do to 'start up' the script is click log out. Besides people have asked this before and Caspian's answers, in context, were that he can't wait to see what people create.
It would be nice and extremely refreshing to be able to set your character to mundane tasks like picking your crops or chopping mass trees whilst you get ready for work or do some course work because it makes them feel ALIVE.