I am fairly certain most of the nihilum players had no illusion of seeing velious anytime soon, I am still not expecting to see it, ever. If it comes out and im still here, great cool I will play it. As for raiding for 2 years, I guess it all depends on who/when/what. I know lots took extended breaks, I wasn't even in the guild for a full year and I enjoyed most of my time raiding/pvping and playing with pals and came out the other end with 10+ fully geared epic characters and even better friends then I started with.

Pretty sure the 10% thing was done because it would have been very demoralizing for people who had been pretty hardcore for 3-4 months (Ksah for example) being 20th in line for an item because a bunch of crown of retirement faggots came back and had all their DKP from 1+ year ago.