LC areas are not an issue.. All they need to do is reset them all, we'd gladly earn them back, and have some actual fun doing so (maybe it will be more than 4 v 4 .. ha ha)
Cities are not an issue either, unless Funcom want's them to be. Every city, instanced or not, should have player shops. All player shops should be searchable and buyable from a GMS terminal. Also some sort of "apology bonus" could be given, such as 1 year rent free.
... To the guy saying this is a bad idea because "the massive population will cause so much lag", I'll just say I'm glad there are still some optimistic people playing.
That is really sad to hear, and frankly annoying. You know just as well as I do that AO is not only not what it used to be, but a very low-population game in general.
I've ran through ely plenty of times on twinked characters looking for a walking research team (talking full combined, inspect enabled etc..) only to be met with "full" kite teams of naked characters /afk leeching off NTs. My point being, that even if AO is as kind to you as you say it is, would more population hurt you? It would sure as hell help me, because I only wish I was lying about how long it takes me to find real non-afk players doing things at my level.