The only thing I might personally change about EQ is to readdress the old quests, like the newbie armor quests. Every so often, I like going back and making a new bard or shammy, but I don't like to do the same quest over and over. I end up twinking it after a bit, and then it isn't anymore a new toon as it is an old toon with lousy skill levels.
I can see that EQ probably would do well to merge a few more servers, and then we might have better populations. Yet, I think much of the problem, if it really IS a problem is that, as the server populations slowly dwindle, Norrath keeps expanding. I see this as being both good and bad, actually.
First, I remember when it was almost impossible to hunt most newbie areas because everything was camped. Remember the Ice Giants and even the mammoths in EF or the orcs in Crushbone? Sure you could find a group, but you hard ever found a place to hunt with that group. Then, the expansions were good things. The toons spread out and, for a bit, everything was good. I think LDoN was probably the last time, in my opinion, that an expansion was a good thing for all concerned.
Now, just because an expansion is not a good thing fo ALL, does not mean that it is a bust. It just means that some are going to like the new content more than others. It seemed, for a long period, that this was going to be the route that EQ was destined to head. That they were not so much interested in attracting new people, but in just keeping current subscribers happy. Serpent's Spine was a departure from that, and I think, many will say that it is a pretty decent expansion. It does give an alternative to the old newbie gear quests, and you can group or solo there with little problem.
I guess what I am getting at is that the game seems so lonely now, because, if you are like me, you tend to gravitate to the same old areas. My usual route at the early stages was a newbie zone til 10 or 15, OT from 12 to about 35 (with a little diversion to PC or DSP here and there), hit the HG in Rathe for plat at 35 to 45 and so on and so on...
Do you think I might be a little bored after a few dozen toons? Sure, who wouldn't be. Then you jump in a group and they take you to new places like KC or even HHP, and you find more people and all this "new" content. See, it really isn't so much the game which had gotten boring, it was me.
Any, aside from the newbie quest changes, the only other thing I would like to see is hot zone changes more often. Just shake the thing up a bit.