We wanted to make sure that new realms would be large enough to be truly viable and sustain good conversation amongst nobles.
The fact that many realms are currently that size or smaller is not an indication that the number should be lower. Rather, it's an indication that the game is still quite unhealthy.
Sustaining conversation cannot be achieved with total nobles alone, it has to do with how active those nobles are. A realm can have 20 nobles and be dead silent because most of them are the player's gold farmers.
It tends to be that new realms are actually more active regardless of size because they're composed of players who were active and engaged enough to try and build something new.
If you feel the existing smaller realms are "unhealthy" then you may as well have them all destroyed in one way or another.
