The real reason the population is declining is...

[Doors]

The grind wouldn't be so bad if actual groups existed for lower level players and people who wanted to play something other than a necro/shaman/druid/mage.

Every single person I know playing a melee or hybrid is only doing so because they are getting power leveled and handed gear from their guild or friends. Since this obviously isn't the case for everyone, most casual players and bluebs that migrated over to check out a pvp box have thrown in the towel already.

[Darwoth]

anyone with an ounce of common sense and a passing familiarity with the game should have known that a melee on a new server with a few hundred players would not make a good first character, even moreso if that person does not have a guild and the server is a pvp server.