I had been doing player-run plots for years with the hacker group Black-Net (lots of turmoil here!), the private investigators gone rogue DoI (comic relief and professionalism at its finest!), a struggling entrepreneur owning Lotto Enterprises (Better go Lotto than Notto!), the introduction of The Leetles band (which had their best appearance at the 9th anniversary), and lots of other little things that I tried my best to get the word out - either via the in-character forums or from my freelance IRRK reporter, Lucetta Phoenix. That could be considered as too much or trying to hog control. If that's the way it was seen then I'm sorry it was misinterpreted as such.
I'm sure lots of us have done similar things in their time, I just had to slow down and stop most of it because the lack of player response/involvement I was receiving. I agree with a lot of your points there and I do think a lot of people need to get off their butts and give it another try. All the doom and gloom in this forums and the community in general is certainly going to cloud my view (and that of others that might be curious to take part) when it comes to giving it a second try.
Noone is blameless here, we've all made mistakes or been idiots at least a few times, me especially.
While I can't afford to continue my subscription, I'm going to continue with my froob characters with what time I have available and try to figure out what I can manage with the resources I have available. AO has taken up a good 6 years of my life (I'm not one of those hardcore 2001'ers, but still), and I hate to see it like this. If others would be willing to join me and give it another try, I'd be happy to give it another shot.