Here's one for everyone.
Do we think the future is going to be better? Do we think that more and more people will be coming to GS? Do we think that more and more people are going to be leaving? Will GS take on a seperate server setup?(I heard that idea somewhere, dunno if it was on these boards er not)Will GS become more expensive?Is the continuing expansion hurting or helping GS?
My take:
I think that more and more people will be coming to GS. As I've been more and more involved in the internet community it's funny to learn how many people have actually heard about Gemstone. People remember seeing the picture of the Gemstone button on the Gemstone treebark post from AOL. More and more people are learning about it...yet there are other companies putting out graphical based games that are definitely going to be giving Gemstone a huge amount of competition. EQ, Ultima, heck...I've lost count...they're all great games. But I can't seem to get into them? Why? My friends here. If you had never seen Gemstone before would you choose a text-based game over a graphical-based game? I don't think so 
Although a lot of people are leaving b/c they can't handle all the changes, whiners, powerhunters, etc., I have seen a lot of old names coming back over the past few months. Recently seeing Seesfar, Tzarrakyn, Luky, and a few others showing up I feel so happy that a lot of the people I knew back when are coming back.
Do I think that the current expansion is good for Gemstone? Hmm. Well that's a huge debate that I know has been debated on in the past months/years. I think that it has it's advantages as well as its disadvantages. I think that the increasing in lands allows for yes...I'm going to say it..._RP'ing_. I've taken a few trips to Solhaven and RR, and it's not to say other areas have the same thing, but it seems that RP'ing in these places is quite evident. I nearly wanted to stay in RR and just hang out with some of the people there. It's a blast in RR. I think a bigger expansion is definitely necessary though. I'm going to stop there though, b/c this topic will move into a debate on the age cap.
I definitely don't want to get into that.
Summary: I think GS can be going down or going up. It depends on your personal definition of optimism with regards to it.
Thanks. reg