to point 2 i can only say the players are at fault here themselve
i started late too (around last week of november) newest servers where around 230 but i wouldnt even think about starting on a server as high as that, i startet on s17 (one of the most populated ones because its the first eu server). my thinking was why would i want to play on a server and be strongest there when there are only a handful of people, so i bit in the sour apple and was behind till now. im still behind the top 100 but i can do all events, there are multiple bracktes in sage for weaker players and that server wont die out

so my point is dont complain about too much new servers just stop creating charakters and spending money there bc you already know the server is going to be empty in about 1-2 month