I was thinking they would be better served with a different system for logging in during an expansion/update. I was thinking that a more "deli style" system would be better. By this I mean: instead of logging into a queue, when you go to log in you are given a "group number" with some kind of rough estimate of how long till log in. This number would remain attached to your character until it is "activated" and would be good for say 2min from the time it was "called".

So, if it said it was 2hrs until your number would be "called", you could log out and wait until a short time before that time before logging back in. When your number came up, it would be for a "lot" of players to log in at once, maybe 100 or so. You would have 2 min to log into this shorter queue, or you loose your place. Once you use your number, you would be put in the shorter queue and should you be disconnected, your place would still be "open" until everyone else in that queue got into the game.

I have no idea how hard it would be to implement, but I would think it would actually reduce the load on the log in servers and also the servers in general.