So, what now? Lotteries with 150+ bids until... when?

[Avoidy]

And yet the demand for plots in the ward far exceeds the supply, new wards sell out very quickly, and people are throwing fits over the possibility that housing reclamation might be turned back on.

By those objective indications, ward housing is a huge sucess, and about as far from a "dead system" as imaginable.

I think by dead they meant nobody's ever seen wandering the wards.
The system is certainly utilized, but that's a given since it's the only housing system we have.