The reason the server is capping at around 50 now is because people have read that it's going down the tubes due to the merge and people, like myself, do not like pvp or, in my case, can't pvp due to age, reflexes, etc. Some of us old folks can't even do dungeons successfully.
Don't tell me the only people who play this game are pvp'ers. There should always be a PVE option and I'm willing to play there no matter how many people are online.