The only thing that actually matters about expansions are the design/story elements and how they shape the game World. You don't need to release an expansion to change class balance, or item balance, or raid encounters, or even to introduce new content. The original Everquest could have continued exist, and would have been more successful in the long run, without adding any new zones at all (great new zones can obviously be a benefit, though). What you need to do is continually change quests and character abilities and drops and NPC behavior/spawns.
If all of those elements are constantly changing, then your players are continually being challenged and exploring the game World, both through experiencing a new zone/encounter re-vamp and through questing for a new item or ability which has become the most ideal for a new game encounter and/or character build. There are plenty of ways to monetize the game with micro-transactions in order to make money, such as only being able to do a certain # of quests before you have to pay to do more, buying more character slots, buying more bank storage, buying new class skills...it's incredibly easy to nickel and dime players if they are loving the game and you're still getting new people buying the game all the time as well, since the game would never be something which requires anyone to "catch up" with regards to grinding and put new players off.
Therefore, Luclin was definitely the end of Everquest. It had almost no connection whatsoever to the rest of the game World and a lot of the zones just felt like boxes IMO. PoP was even worse in that regard, completely obliterating the sense of an immersive World and having zones that 100% felt like boxes (well, I actually never even saw all of them, but I definitely saw enough). This was actually the one real design flaw of Original Everquest - the "Planes" were rather poorly designed in terms of conveying the sense of a GOD's entire territory.
Kunark was easily the best expansion because it had a lot of brilliantly designed creatures and zones, which were highly explorable (dangerously!) and interconnected. The designs had a whole new feel as compared to Original Everquest and yet felt 100% organic to the game World. The Iksar being a playable race and starting off in the middle of the continent, and being hated EVERYWHERE else in the Old World (even by the evil races), was an excellent concept.
Velious was good, but didn't quite feel fully formed. Yes, it's supposed to be one of the most desolate places on the planet, but there still could have been more to it. The fact that it was nearly all icy/snowy didn't bother me at all; this made complete sense and was even a necessary addition to the game World, since there were so few areas in the game with that kind of look and feel. The concept of the war between Giants and Dwarves was good, although it needed to have a bit more resonance. I REALLY think an extra, easier zone connection to Western Wastes was needed as well, to bridge the gap on the continent. A tunnel from Thurgadin would have made perfect sense (or rather a tunnel to another zone that connected to Western Wastes...if you look at the World map there's quite a gap there).
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