As someone about as far removed from strat, while still participating, let me take a stab at what's happening (I don't really know anything specifically).
There's not a lot of people who play crpg, it takes a lot of effort to coordinate a strat faction, and then to see neither side able to fill a roster, makes some people rethink the time and effort they're putting into the game.
As for me, I just move my guy around the strat map, and can't really participate much in battles/sieges, so I'm not too invested one way or another.
I hope people won't just give up on the game completely, since I still love crpg and full strat battles, but the truth is that the player populations have been dwindling, and not having a properly updating crpg client has only contributed to that (which it looks like it might be fixed, since it updated last night before I got into a strat battle).