[Lord Sephiroth]

It's never been stated by the PWA that in order to meet Classic qualifications you need a certain level requirement, you just have to prove that your server content is competant enough to withhold a playerbase. It's been discussed a few times whether or not a server with 20 overworld levels could qualify as long as it had enough content to maintain the server and every PWA that responded in these threads said they were more than willing to pass such a server if it existed.

As for why more people don't attempt small-scale servers, that can really be one of two reasons. As stated earlier in the thread, they might be modelling their server after the current Classic servers and are assuming the PWA demand massive worlds.

The more likely scenario is that the current ideas for playerworlds are bordering on the line of having their own separate game only developed and launched using the Graal development platform. Every server idea lately is some MASSIVE project that really demands having a large overworld to support it. RPG type servers are a good example, same with "Multi-theme" servers where players can jump to different worlds.

To make a long story short, there aren't any playerworld inspection restrictions on overworld size, it's just the current "mood" so to speak when it comes to designing your own server.