Heh, in fact just the opposite seems to be true. For a long time I was able to go to out of the way places and have zones completely to myself.
Recently I've bumped into more people in places like Chardok, Kael, Droga, (even Western Waste for heaven's sake) than I have for at least two years.
A friend wanted to go get a couple of quick runes in WoS yesterday, there was 40+ people there. Went to MPG instead, there were 36 people there. (Don't you Yanks ever sleep?
)
Seems to me that we have more people actively playing than I've seen for quite a while.