I agree with most of the things said in here.
If we look at history of the CN, I can point at one place which supports your conclusions: NPO. Just a huge number of new players joining and that changed the game as the players back then knew it forever.
While this example is from a completely differente time in terms of how much infow of players this game had, these days that would be completely impossible to have a group of new players joining in that would affect the game's internal politics. Just another mass alliance with low tech.
