Problem is the population of the Japanese is still healthy, might be time for regional servers or something because the EU population is equally dead on Shiva, American isn't much healthier.
Only real way to get anything done is to have 2-5 friends still interested enough in the game to meet regularly and do content (3-6 is more than enough for anything as it stands).
While I wanna see mergers too, I doubt they'll happen until the Japanese population is unhappy.