I do suspect there's something wonky going on with the "down to 1 and then kicked" situation. There's gotta be some bizarre miscommunication where the server recognizes you're up for getting logged in, and starts making the attempt and somehow can't find your character or something.

Realistically, there shouldn't be nearly so many cases of players genuinely sitting at literally the front of the line. If you see yourself down to first in line, you should immediately be suspecting something's gone wrong and the server can't sort it out.