OP saying they couldnt anticipate the popularity is lazy thinking. They have a whole marketing team, some of whom should easily be able to track popularity in MANY ways such as streamer engagement (which we know they do), pre-order numbers, and the general increase in player count over the past year. EU were already experiencing queues both peak and off peak BEFORE endwalker dropped. In marketing campaigns they boast about how many registered users there are, a massive 400% on the number we had in Heavenward yet where are the servers??? SE just wont pay the price of the server hardware upgrades which is a huge insult given how many subscriptions are landing in their pockets.