The stagnation on Balmung existed before the server was completely locked down. It's a direct consequence of people encouraging as many players as possible to flock to the server despite it being obvious what the complications would be.

Mateus and Omega exist as alternatives for those seeking role-play. The latter is, however, currently locked down as well. There's also pockets of role-players scattered across other servers.

The argument that people cannot play with their friends is a bit deceptive - because they can, they just aren't willing to compromise and find another server or just invest in an alt. Additional cross server features are set to be added over time and we've already seen some implemented already.