I haven't been playing AE missions since coming back at all. Personally, I just never found them that fun or interesting. It didn't feel like personal stories, just player made missions to make farming/xping quicker.
With that said, the game died for me pretty much when I came back at one point and the only groups I found were AE missions. That is what got me to stop playing the game before the servers were turned off. As these servers stand now, the population is amazing and there are groups to be had everywhere. So I don't see the problem, other than server stability issues. The real problem will come up when/if the population drops low and there is a segmentation in the community of who likes what.
Since there are so many servers, it may not be that big of a deal and especially with the current population, it definitely isn't right now. I think this issue rears it's ugly head when you only have a couple thousand players playing.
However to have some players complaining about the speed of leveling with the increased xp and the xp buff you get on creation, blows my mind. Maybe it's because I'm an EQ player and this grind is nothing to me but right now xp seems so fast that I can't imagine speeding it up. Of course that's my personal experience but I am happy we don't have insta 50's, cause thats how you kill a game imo but the leveling rate right now seems a lot faster/easier that needing any kind of help for farming/xping seems completely unnecessary.
Not to mention, you can farm easily without AE but to each their own. Im just glad that the devs/admins of the server prioritize server stability/population over AE. Might be upsetting for the AE players but not sure how you can argue between more people on the servers/servers more stalbe and certain players wanting specific content as a convenience.