I think that we had the inactivity problem for the whole three years, except for the first couple of months when everyone was all excited about building the alliance. Imo that was caused by the fact that we were never too serious about growth and that kind of stuff. Maybe that made the real "pros" frustrated and even angered and they eventually left to join more ambitious alliances. On the other hand, for people like me, it made FCO the best place to just hang out and have fun getting your butt nuked in wars because you really didn't know what the hell you were doing.
I guess ignorance really is bliss.