As a Runescape fan I can tell you it only went down-hill after Andrew Gower sold out big time to the American Company IVP. They may say everything is the same, but the fan base wasn't having any of it. With the squeal of fortune and Soloman's store. One thing Jagex did which everyone hated, RWT.
Yes they did make the 2007 servers for people to use. BUT. They only did this after holding a poll which limits to what they brought out. For example if they got to the 750k votes, you could access the servers FOR FREE. But we didn't get to that, we got to just over 500k so we have to have a membership to use it.
Yes they obliged, kinda. But if the votes didn't come in, especially seeing as only members could vote. Then we wouldn't have the servers at all.
When you say "subgroup", I believe it was more like 70% of the player base. The amount of people who have left the game over the years are in the thousands. So much has changed since the old days, that it is TOO different. This is completely different to EQG however, seeing as it doesn't affect the seasons one bit. And if they mention it once in season four, seriously...how is it going to affect the storyline? I'd love to see Sunset Shimmer in Season 4, but apparently she won't be in it.