I've been trying to create a character on Balmung for weeks since that's where my friends and family play, but it's pretty much constantly restricted. I try waking up at 3 and 7 am EST sometimes and it's still locked to new characters.

Since Balmung is pretty much constantly locked (and there may be other worlds with similar issues, though I didn't pay them much attention), I think a way to remedy some population issues are to allow people from the most populated servers free transfers to mid-populated and low-populated servers.