OK, I just read all of the thread, and I must say, damn, so many points that hit just right. And I see a shitload of posts were deleted, 10/10 move - this makes the thread a good and easy read.
I'm a terrible writer, so plz bear with me.
It's true, the community grew to a be an abhorrent pile of fungus, but I think you guys are failing to realize that this game already achieved cult status, and I don't see it just dying anytime from here to another decade.
I also want to point out a major flaw on people's opinion about the "perfect server" or the pay2win killer.
It's not the 2000's anymore.
You can't force people to play a game designed to catter the "golden age of shitty mmorpgs" standards. The grindfest was somekind of acceptable because most people didn't know any better - I was a kid, so I couldn't ask my dad to buy me a WoW/Guildwars/Lineage2 subscription, so I'm very familiarized with the korean approach.
Pservers are still forcing elements that sustain that playstyle over and over - it's not about the ride anymore. I'm sorry! but it's safe to assume that most of the current playerbase is adult, and, as such, do you really have the time to grind? to quest? to do 10x trade runs? Why do you keep asking for 1x-5x rates? The grinding all along is tiresome and unenjoyable. Yet, insta-cap servers are deemed dead-on-arrival, so there's plenty to analyze there. The point is that the game should focus on balancing the effort/reward/enjoyability aspect. All these servers state that their game is trully play2win® because end-gear is hard to get and their coin system, silk/h etc. make it fair for everyone; yet you see "wtb egy B +12 full set" in globals on your first day of joining - how exactly is this play2win?; are you winning dad? - no son, i'm getting fucked again in BA by xXxNukerNAruto666.
There's still some kind of formula out there that this game hasn't even got close to attain in order to really shine like the gem it is. There's no point expecting Joymax/Wemade/etc. will do final justice to their game, and sadly the greedy community devs are the same.
A lot of valid points were made here;
GMs' corruptability is tied to them now being reachable by the community; this results in the big guilds influence problem.
All "play2win" elements that are in place to reward players for engaging in activities - and are essential to building their char up - are monopolyzed by people who buy their way up; stupid and ironic as it sounds.
Uniques; if someone, for example, enjoys being a non-nuker, or a support character, or just by being a new player, that person is definitely excluded from the uniques experience. Str/Int uniques is a good approach, but doesn't solve this in reality. I've always thought it would be 10x nicer if instead of the unique killer showing on screen, the names of the whole party are shown; that would effectively eliminate the need for str/int variances - don't know if it's possible within the files tho.
Also gold should be the only currency in the game, and it should stay low, handling trillions is just retarded; something like 1 million gold should be a fortune.
In the end, I think there's still room for people to do good for this game and its ungrateful community, because, after all -shitty as it is in its current state- it's a game worth preserving.