I'd also throw in a vote for a game-wide reset with fewer islands. Blighting will leave a permanent admission of 'we are going downhill' right on the map and it won't make sense to people not on the forums. I get that you could do it in such a way that it could be un-done but it's transferring the stagnation of the game to the stagnation of the in-game world and I don't know if that's a good move either from a utility or a marketing standpoint.
I know lots of people have invested lots of time into their realms and I'm no different. But I'd give it up if it made the experience better afterwards.
The game just doesn't have the same feel it did years ago and the biggest reason for that is the player count because so much other stuff is better.
Keep Dwilight, FEI, and EC. Ditch the rest. Those three places have the most unique 'feel' - Atmarra to me feels like a more boring version of EC and BT seems to require too much work from the staff. Maybe time it with some new code if you guys are semi-close to anything new and exciting - sea travel everywhere, new intra-realm / duchy dynamics, anything like that would go real well with this so that it looked like a purposeful reboot rather than a desperate act.
