In a nutshell if your sitting on the fence...

[Jochi Khan]

Swoosh So

You forgot the biggest problem of all.....The dreaded chat foyer

How can you chat with friends who do not even show in your chat window?

I see one window..Europe..one Public..one Clan

I have over 70 Friends listed but can only connect to the ones in Clan(4)
How am I supposed to connect/chat with all the other players I usually play with?

From experience last night trying to help a lot of the 'first time' multiplayers.
57 in chat (didn't know any of them) asking where do the games show, cant see games in list, cant join games, etc etc
The number who said they had had enough of this Totalwar xxxx I am going off to play blah blah blah.

This is going to kill off the hoped for new community.

*Rant over*