I had a similar problem, well.. Chain of the problems you summed up:
I was in-game when i got a combat bug, couldn't do anything so I force quit the game (as I know theres a grace period of 3 or 5 min. so you don't have to re-enter the queue but can just log in).
As I was logging in, I got stuck in Authenticating. Disconnected, retry, Authenticating again, this repeated itself a while until I finally got in... the queue... In there for about an hour or longer, and then the thing disconnects me again (while actually in the 1k area of the queue, coming from over 5k). They say you have to relaunch your client when this happens (did so last time and instantly got in), and after this I'm back at 5500 again. All of this is for the Elysium PvP server.
The new server launch didn't really took the strain off things.
I don't want to be complaining, an I know there are far more important things the devs are working on (what is a good thing).
Each individual problem I can live with but when it all comes together (forced to relaunch, authentication madness, DCin in queue, all of that) it kinda pisses a person off.
