Amyl, I think you make a very good point. While we should strive to fill the servers, if we must sacrifice our own enjoyment of the game and drastically limit the rotation so as to include only those few maps that most people are happy to play on then we are probably doing it wrong.
Trouble is, what is the alternative? (I'm really asking here!) TF2 is an old and arguably dying game (yes dying for a long while now, but the herd of players is undoubtedly thinning even more of late) so keeping a consistent enough player base that we can justify the cost of the servers is only going to get harder.
Removing maps from the rotation is quite probably a very bad thing to do. Molly-codling the community and making it so that people don't have to play any map they don't fancy right at the moment will just lead to a lazier and more demanding community. Problem is they are not exactly beating down the door to come play with us so it is not like we can lay the law down too hard either.
I don't know: I really don't. It is going to be a tough needle to thread this; keeping the servers as full as possible while not kowtowing to every whimsy of the players. Unless something happens to suddenly reinvigorate the TF2 community at large then this situation will only worsen.
For now, though, I think we have to encourage the players we know we have, and if that means relegating the less popular maps to the SpA Points menu, then so be it.
(EDIT: Ugh. just noticed that I used a lot of archaic terms and phrases in that post. That'll teach me to post stuff when taking a break halfway through a fairly heavy chapter. yell at me if the above doesn't make sense...
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