Even with however many people are currently on, always half of them are inaccessible.

If you were to take 1000 people online, half immediately are 2boxes/triboxes/pocket whm&geo/afk's, then another half of the remaining are jp (varies by server etc), so at any given time a person trying to accomplish something has a really slim chance of doing it.

Merges are STILL NOT THE ANSWER, I hate to be basically the only voice of reason on this, but seriously, merges, only create problems. What there actually needs to be is transfer fee negation. The ability to play on a deserted server, to do the things that you want to be alone for, and the ability to join a real server for "content".

Nothing would be better, than logging in to a dead server, and doing Ambuscade/dynamis/trails/farming/etc but then you have no chance of getting AHable gear/clears/endgame. And vice versa. Being able to wake up and log into dead server and farm, then log into real server when you want to do content would be absolutely perfect, hence, will never happen.

Merges just piss everyone off, and give you twice as many afk and undesirables.... You think that if your dead server merges with another dead server, shouts will suddenly spring up... sorry, it won't happen.