You seem to be seeing it completely backwards. MMOs are about progressing as time passes.
Those very points you mentioned: better mounts and convenience items not being available until later in the game - THAT is something to work towards, that's a goal, it sure does contribute to an incentive.
I didn't mind having to wait when I first started, but when I first started there was a population while not as good as one hoped, it was enough to do GT.
Point is, with the population as low as it is, they need more of an incentive to keep people.
Talking from NA perspective (please remember not everything revolves around EU times and no lifers)...
Talking to anyone while leveling/gearing/grinding = non existent
Doing GT for bigger bag and rubies = non existent
Doing any other raids = non existent
Gearing in a party either by Wellebell or Astral = non existent
Incentive to wanna play as a NA player due to all the above = non existent
With the best friends stuff i allways got 2 newbies bestfirend and share my best mounts with them, all imps that wanna change to league are pretty wellcome, the matter is that i didnt see that, there is a guy who want to come to league, but he wanna wait for the priden patch, i even ofer myself to boost anyone, i really dont care... but all ppl go to imp, even with that there are some new league players close to get to 60
You guys/gals are completely missing the point. It is not just about the mounts. See my above reply.
I was one of those imps that went to lig just for the sake of hoping to balance the tiny population out and really only felt welcome by 2 players in which one I know quit and the other one wasn't on much when I was.
Instead of arguing about it all...somehow we need to drill it through the people that run this game to ADVERTISE and give some sort of incentive for newcomers to want to come and want to stay. But then we know this wont happen because when they did give out all that free sub time they wouldnt advertise it. It is hard to not want to give up and not sugar coat the truth when it doesnt seem that they even care about this server.
For example of them not caring (havent logged in yet today to know)...they had xp lucky moments yesterday and no lucky moments on the free server...where was the post or news of that? When they have a sale on something do they think to bring out at least a costume that the free server can buy with their coins? No, instead they just throw lm's out and hope to keep the people that are still playing happy.