I dunno, I heard something about an update with new content on say December 17th-ish. But that could have just been a wild flight of fancy on my part.
Truthfully that is the fickle nature of some MMO players, they burn through new content then pretty much go dark between patches. These people also tend to care only about gearing their own character and not helping others in the FC/LS and better the shell as a whole.
As for the others, well it's the holiday season and families, long hours at retail jobs and parties/events tend to get in the way of logging on for extended periods. Your best bet is to sit tight for a bit longer.
Also I'm fairly certain the are aiming to avoid open world NM's everywhere and the trouble that tends to cause, not to mention they would have to change loot distribution entirely for those NM's.