Sorry guys, didn't read the whole thread, tl;dr and too much flaming and immature bickering.
On topic: please, chadz, pretty please with sugar on top, seperate NA and EU strategus.
What I'd like to have: 2 continents and hardcore island(s) in the middle. The continents would have a fixed server location and a limited time window for battles. So on the European continent(rich of recources and beautiful people) battles would always been fought on the EU strategus server and could only take place between 17:00 GMT to 0:00 GMT. A similar thing for the NA continent (wasteland with hideous population) with forced NA server and a decent time window for them.
The hardcore island between both continents could retain the current way of handling battles with server location depending on defender and free battle times. That's where inter-conti clans and those with too much free time could have their fun.
That would be a great solution. Or, for the short term, just give the NA's their own strategus server.
Or, if you really want to keep everyone on one big strategus world, create a system where factions can select a certain amount of timeslots each week to prevent this unwanted 5 AM buisness.