Why are small minimalist overworlds deprecated?

[Cubical]

A few filler levels aren't a problem, there is a problem with servers like GK where 98% of the overworld go unused by players and 90% of that 98% isn't even used for anything. Not just because all that content took ages to develop, or that all that content was developed without any plans of putting anything there but that work could have been put into creating other content that would stand a purpose and occupy some more of the players time. A lot of levels on servers with Classic status have absolutely no reason for players to visit them more than once and that's just to see what is in that house.

If kingdoms were to be made by say Dusty or just some random person, it would have never made it past hosted in the state it is currently in with the type of content it has right now. Although I'm sure Dusty would have done quite a bit better of a job with the server I was just throwing a name out there of a good developer. The only thing that kept me playing GK for thousands of hours was the allure of trading. If I had had to actually pay for my gold I would have stopped after my first 3 months ran out. GK has close to no content and everything could be downsized. I can almost guarantee the player count would rise if it were to make everything a bit closer than it is right now.