Personally, I've played EQ off and on (mostly on) since 2 weeks after release....I've seen most expansions up to one before the current live one, and I've raided up to PoRish, if memory serves. And while every era has it's plusses and minuses, I've enjoyed them all, personally, so answering the OPs question isn't so simple for me.
I think, as a stand alone game, the original classic era is just fine. So is going thru Velious and stopping. While I love classic, I think going to Velious and stopping as we are here is more than appropriate and makes more sense than just staying at classic. Although a purely classic server would be pretty cool, IMO.
Stopping at PoP or maybe LDoN would make for another great server, I think. I really enjoyed that era of the game, even though it put classic behind us and things started getting inflated.
Beyond that, I think DoN would be a great stopping point. The inflation and trivialization started with luclin, ramped way up in GoD and most seem to agree that expansion was not good for the game, but OoW fixes a lot of that, and DoN fixes a lot of OoW. I really dig AA and loved this era of the game, personally.
For me, it's not a question of "perfect." The game has always been fun. Just depends on what era you like, I guess.
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