On the subject of localized versus global servers, I find it strange that with years of playing localized online games like WoW where the servers aren't very far away at all, and playing FFXI and FFXIV where the servers are strictly in Japan, I have almost no latency problems whatsoever with the Japanese servers as opposed to American servers. WoW had some of the worst lag I've ever seen, and oddly enough, servers on the other side of the planet there's hardly any lag at all for me.

I'm no computer scientist though.

And back to my original point, I'm not sure whatsoever how a 7 hour maintenance in the middle of the night (for North America) is unthinkable. Sucks for some other places, but you're acting as though this is right in the middle of the average person's playing time (as if it mattered) and is ruining everything. As far as North America is concerned this is the best time for a maintenance, since the average person... you know, sleeps.