After reading through the thread, I have three points to make.
First, I agree very much with chadz on the new programmers thing. I'm a graduate student in computational science, so I do a literal fuckload of programming in a bunch of different languages. I had it in my head for awhile that I'd try out the whole warband modding deal and see if I could maybe help out with crpg. After downloading the module system, I can completely understand why it's a huge time investment to get someone trained to use it properly. I just didn't have the time to put in to learn it, so I gave up trying on my own. Now, if chadz/cmp/paul/anyone who knows the warband module system properly could put together a small example, explain what's going on, and post it in a thread to get people started, maybe they could drum up some interest. Hell I might take another crack at it. However, it would still involve a lot of training and patience from the devs even if some promising young starry-eyed programmer springs forth from the community.
Second, regarding the 'mod is dying do new things' part of the game, new, better gamemodes would probably help a lot (see: conquest), but strat battles are also a tremendous way to get people to play. I think something that might be nice would be to set up a 'sponsored' strat battle once or twice a week (on NA and EU), where both armies are outfitted with a large amount of troops/gear and have the maximum allowable mercs per side. Commanding rights could be sold at auction the week before. Granted, there are already high gear value, high troop count battles going on in strat, but having a guaranteed big experience battle might be nice.
Third, a full wipe really can't be the answer. It'll just drive people away. However, doing a wipe with some benefits from the experience/looms/gold/gens/titles/whatever you've got on your old character might be appropriate, but it would also need to come with some very drastic gameplay changes to get people on board.
