Factions - what size of playerbase are we expecting? (Part 2, possible changes to make next season)

This suggestion is mainly made with next season in mind. Some of these changes could be made this season, but doing so could cause issues (i.e. making it harder for new players to catch up) so I think it's best to leave certain things as is unless there's strong demand for some of these changes, or other compensating changes are made. I really want to see this gamemode achieve it's former level of popularity next season, but I don't know if that's realistic. I think at the very least, we need to plan for the possibility that this doesn't happen and be ready to adapt to a smaller playerbase (I assume this season was built with the hope of achieving a similar level of success to last season) Here are my thoughts/observations on how well/poorly certain aspects of the server work as things are right now (average playercount of 5-15 players) READ BELOW!!!