Unlocking Balmung doesn't necessarily mean that everything has to be unlocked. They can lock transfers, and limit character creation (like they already do on some of the other big servers).
And even then, unlocking it doesn't mean that everyone will swarm back to the server, considering that didn't happen when Gilgamesh was unlocked.
You're looking at the wrong column in the recent census. The 22,562 numbers is from the previous census. The current top 5 is Balmung (21,507), Leviathan (19,250), Cactuar (18,339), Omega (17,863), and Louisoix (17,733).
However, if you look at the amount of characters at lvl 70, Balmung and Leviathan are even closer, at 12,857 to 12,031 characters.
If the net change stays the same, with Balmung losing just over 1k players between the most recent, and the previous census, it should probably be within range of a character creation unlock in the first half of 2018.
A thread's discussion can continue without interaction from the OP. It's better to have a single thread talking about the Balmung server lock, than having a new thread about it every week.
