Ooer! You're both brilliant!

What if there's a class/race-wide questmaster type thing available at the hero ranks. You log it at 4 am, there are 16 players on, one other hero that you really don't have beans worth to interact with him, you go to a certain place and this NPC always has something for you to do. The reward for this quest wouldn't be experience, but a single percentage of skill/spell/power/song increase. The increase could only apply to those skills/spells you'd increase from spamming off somewhere in the mountains. This could also solve the lore problem, by making one questmaster give out lore points. I think the possibilities are endless, and would encourage exploring the land. Let's say you could only complete one quest in an in-game week, and if the quest is too hard, you can get a different random one after an OOC day.

Sorry, this is WAAAAAAY off-topic, but Qaledus inspired me. I agree with the guy who said there's not much to do with a thief if there are no PCs on. I don't have any new suggestions at the moment on how to fix it, though.