It was really good for the first year, there was a tight community (I played Arthas, EST PvP - BGC/Aurora/TC guilds) and the grind was not so bad - not a lot of items, not a lot of all this enchantment and gear and farming and whatever people do in there now. Then the game hit mass market in a big way, thy decided to let people move from different servers, th community got split up, but I was already gone by then so. . .
Like AH, if it ever had say 4000 people online at once, or even 10,000 people - it would change this community and I don't think a lot of people would be happy. Sometimes its nice like this, large enough to support the game and develop slowly, small enough to sit around and read radio Midway on 200.