Aye, the activiness on .coms MP section shows how much people can be bothered with MP.
Now there are 2 kinds of players. The die-hards and the casual players.
Since we now have something as a mod switch you can easely balance units for yourselves and you can easely make maps, while still being able to play against other players. Look at how the Lordz have reskinned the menus of the game for their NTW2, why can't that be done for the lobby? You can easely have a modswitch so you will still be able to play the noobs (as some of you will put it) while you can also play eachother in a balanced game.

CA won't change this game anymore, it's finished, with a bit of luck they will do something in Kingdoms. Best you can do is hope for the new game.