I've been playing since closed beta, actually have had two accounts the entire time.
I would say that the original team was about the best I've seen, they stated they were making a story-driven, PvE, casual-friendly game and made a beautiful game, rich in lore and as true to the books as a game can be and be fun and functional. The dominant positive charactoristics was a game rich in lore, truly beautiful graphics, and the nicest, mature, most civilized player base I've seen since early EQ.
Then the live team took over and they simply threw out the guidelines of the original dev team....and although still a very good game, it is not as great as it once was....seems like everything they do is something meant to force everyone into a narrow path. They went from casual-friendly to catering to hardcore kins, added gating to make things exclusive to them, and story line became secondary. Legendary system is a lottery system that doesn't even resemble what was advertised. Their idea of fun has changed to making things "challenging" which usually means some boss mob uses random one-shots that causes wipes.
Now this would be ok, if it had started that way...but as a result the old-timers have gone from fanbois to waiting around to see if they will change back to the original concept...and there are a few indications they might, many playing less and less though.
The few new folks are less mature and will probably move on when school starts again.
So no idea where the game will be in a few months. Don't get me wrong it is still a very, very good game, just not as outstanding as it once was.