Well, i'm just here to say that my online gaming experience started with "Ultima online" in 1997, and i'm still playing it from time to time. This game is 17 years old, older than some ppl in crpg. and not dead yet.
I thought of this exact thing before I read your post. The Jedi Outcast community, a game which is 12 years old, has more players on one day than NA 1 has had in the last couple of three nights. This game is only FOUR years old, AND it's the only game in the genre that does its job well. Sure people are moving on to different games, but some of us have only been here for a couple of years (April of 2012 myself) and still find the game very enjoyable... when it's playable.
I will admit, there was a time when I thought strength builds and two-handers were the bane of cRPG and were ruining the game, but in all reality, they were not that bad with what we have to deal with now. If players wanted a fast-paced game, then the developers should have tweaked the server's "Combat Speed" to "Fastest". And if weapons were too fast or dealing too much damage, then maybe their values needed to be adjusted for fair gameplay. This agi mess we have now with polearms hitting early on overheads, one-hand stabs STILL stabbing through everything like a knife through tissue paper, and the one-hand right swing arc being completely changed is just infuriating.
I think the biggest problem with population we're dealing with, besides players just leaving because they're bored, is players not wanting to come back until X is fixed. Granted some of those concerns are more valid than others, but I think looking back to the gameplay before, these devs should weigh what was bad about the gameplay versus what was good. Hell, throw in some new armors and make Strat less of a pissing match and you've got a fun game again.