I think all this hate is uncalled for. I think the solution they chose is ultimately the best solution to the population problem. After the merge we will have 10 fairly evenly populated servers, uninfluenced by names. I like this idea better than them trying to balance populations on existing servers. I was torn at first about the name thing, but lets be honest: That's what caused the problem in the first place. So I can understand them wanting to avoid a similar situation.

In the end, Yoshi was OK with this solution because he believed in Linkshell communities being able to come together and choose a new server. They are giving us plenty of time to pick our new world. I honestly do not understand what the big deal is.

The only problem I saw was for players who are no longer active, but like Yoshi said, they can find their friends and use the World Transfer service after 2.0. I think that is fair, especially if you assume many players will not return until 2.0.