normally when I log in the afternoon it's around 360+ players.
Unfortunately this subjective perspective isn't exactly true for a whole lot of players. It's a bit like at the end of the 2-LW era, when I was told "the caps kicking in at 19:00 cest are no problem" by players which weren't forced to fly at that time at all
300+ is only being reached for a very limited time during US peak these days. For the most part of the day, and thus for a large number of players (not limited to non-US ones), these numbers can only be dreamed about. In
my afternoon, I would be lucky if it's even 100 players (at noon you may find only 40).
And with that few players on a large map, it's very much possible that the sole battle on the map is on the other side, between the two other countries. "Doing something different" means then milking some towns or do some unopposed basegrabs.
Now I often see a big fight going between the two other teams. Then if you switch sides to get in on it you cant change sides again for 24 hours.
The solution to that (actually 12 hours by the way) is reducing the time switch limit
Especially as with that few players we have at off hours the numbers can go seriously out of whack:
(This is an ordinary week day, my early afternoon)
