Thinking back, to when I first started playing on Neverendless till the point of my departure, I think the things that stood at the most to me was without a doubt the change in conviences from retail.
Though the teleport npc was controversial, it created hot spots for world pvp, I fully admit it had its draw backs and created a lot of headaches for people who were trying to use it for what seemed to be its more intended purpose, leveling and fast travel. It was still without a doubt what i found crucial in how I expanded my old guild (When Fat Kids Attack), and attracted others to play with me. I remember when I first started on NE and I was sitting at those port in spots by myself, all the way up until right before its removal were I ended up having large raid groups having guild style wars for fun. One of the biggest mistakes retail WoW ever made was their creation of the queue system for dungeons and the like, now no one needed to adventure out and put themselves in harms way. So I think NE's version of port locations just to zones was a nice balance between that, we still had to travel/adventure in the game but did not have to spend that much time getting to the zones we wanted to be in. Looking at the current retail WoW with their flight training requirements and such, they noticed their error and at least some what addressed it.
Though I do miss the ol pub stomp custom gear lol, I fully support what I"m seeing on the rewards page currently. Custom gear was OP. So kudos to these changes.
I also miss the city raids! Oh man, having two raids groups full of WFKA members charging through Orgrimmar, what a blast that was! Wish I had been into recording videos back then, I would love to watch some replays for nostalgia. Not sure what could be done staff side to encourage large scale pvp, but just a thought. NE staff always had good events as it was. The climbing/platform events, the events where we tried to kill a boss and defend each other while the enemy faction was attacking, epic.