The main gist I get from what you're saying is that in order to judge what is working we need feedback on who and where the new players are coming from. This can be tough. But the good news is I think CF is small enough of a game/community where you could potentially get a fairly decent picture on where newer players are coming from. Something simple like: take all the current marketing paths being put forth, and put a voting poll on the main page. "Where'd you hear about us?". Cliche'd but simple enough to be worthful I think.

I would strongly suggest that we capture email from people when they role their first character. We email them their character name and password, and a welcome letter with some tips to help ease the learning curve. Point them to the newbie channel and newbie QandA forum. Then a few days later they get an automated email that asks them how it's going, and if there is anything we can do to help. If they aren't playing we at least have an opportunity to find out what went wrong and fix it for the next guy.

I think the Imms have been against this from the beginning. Personally, I'd agree. I hate putting my email in anything. I'd probably close the window immediately if I was a potential player. I like the fact that playing CF "feels" completely free and anonymous.

Step 4: Adequate Customer Service

Finally, we want to make sure that we don’t overload our path so that people don’t get the attention that they need to make a buying decision. For us in the martial arts school, we know we can only process about 20 new members a month without bogging down our system. We aim at 20, and no more. How many people can you handle on your path at one time, logistically?

Another really solid point:
1) How many players could the server (both hardware and software) physically handle? (my hunch would be a lot)
2)How many players could the current game layout handle before it gets unplayable? (Although seeing a hundred players on my who pk list would seem really fricken cool at first, would current gameplay really support this?).
Now, of course, I'm looking at this in an extremely optimistic light, but who know...?