I think that there are enough WWI fans to keep it populated at least as well as Midwar, providing they have something to do other than pure furball.
From what I saw when I was flying regularly in there.
You had 2 or 3 really good pilots, people would gravitate and collect around them.
(As they lived longer that way) Until a point was reached, and the good pilots would jump to a different country.
And the process would repeat itself.
Unless you were totally rocking your game, or flying with not against those supersticks.
It was often very very frustrating trying to survive long enough to land a kill.
Now I never considered myself better than an average pilot.
But eventually it just got to be more frustration than I could deal with.
Thats why I have said, and will continue to say that the WWI arena needs "more" to do than just furball.
The furball will exist as long as people are there. What we need are fun things to do to keep the people coming back.
Balloon busting, scouting, photo recon, zep hunting, Convoy busting are just a few of the possibility's.
None of them have to be tied to "win the war" or base taking.
All of them will give people something to do when they are tired of or frustrated with the furball.
As well as encourage people to fly something other than the Dr1.