I'll try and speak to a few things here. I've noticed a handful of these types of comments on the forums lately.
The 2.0 client wont "come out of alpha/beta" and EJ has clarified as recently as November that he has no plans to wipe 2.0 (
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10657&p=102896#p102896) unless Steam has a specific policy requiring it. I've researched the Steam part a little bit and found no indication that this would be a Steam requirement.
If the folks that are insinuating that the client needs to be wiped actually attempted to play it, they would quickly realize that it is unnecessary. Gear isn't artificially locked but a lot of the higher level players are wearing the same gear. The maximum ilvl range of "end game" gear here is i70-i78 simply because there are limited hunting areas and the highest monster levels in these areas tend to be in the 77/78 range. We just don't have enough high level players to kill bosses or farm DD regularly (to acquire the absolute highest level gear). Most higher level mages are wearing gray shrouds and diabolic staves/dragon eye staves whereas most melees are wearing dirus/diabolic weapons and demo chain/diabolic plates.
While the client has been out for a few years, folks beginning to start playing the game today can catch up to the majority of end game players in 6-8 weeks of dedicated game play. In fact, there is one very popular high level hunting area that most classes can begin hunting around level 60 that has the ability to drop just about every single high-level item listed above. Catching up to the current player base gear wise is not an issue. As for rate of leveling, this client does progress slower than x1 through and through. It doesn't make it any less fun of a game you just can't really put your gauge for happiness entirely into the xp/hour basket or you will be disappointed (especially for those coming from x1.0).
The same things that keep people engaged and active on x1.0 apply here, we just don't have a large enough population for it. The current player base tends to be very casual so that's why there is hardly any pvp. That doesn't mean pvp can't kick off at any time (especially with an influx of 1.0 players). Bosses exist here but they are too strong for the low population of high level players to kill consistently. Again, this late game feature exists we just need more regular players to dps them down.
I think the biggest reason why x2.0 hasn't really taken off is the fact that EJ has stated that he plans to move x1.0 players to a new x2.0 server at some point when he's built it out enough (
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5535#p59780). Taken at face value, there's no real incentive for x1.0 players to naturally move to this 2.0 server. They may as well continue progressing the characters they have already invested many years into with the expectation they'll get moved to a 2.0 server later. I would add that there is a steady stream of absolutely new players to Xenimus (finding the game organically) that tend to start out on the 2.0 client.
Many players tend to forget that maintaining Xenimus is simply a hobby and side project for EJ. It's not his full time job and he doesn't owe us anything. People who are complaining about 2.0 with the comments like "Nobody from x1.0 even asked for it!" or "He just needs to kill it off and focus on fixing x1.0 issues" are disconnected from this reality. EJ created 2.0 as an eventual successor to x1.0 because it's newer technology and probably provides renewed interest for him. He's mentioned before that he's limited in the changes he can make to the x1.0 client based on the older technology it's built upon. X2.0 provides him a means to expand the game (via new content and new features) at an exponentially faster rate than he ever could on x1.0. This should be viewed as a good thing!
EJ's going to do what he wants to do and we aren't really going to do or say anything to affect that. I think a lot of x1.0 folks don't really want to lose years of progression on their current accounts and that's understandable. I personally think that x2.0 is the future one way or the other and that's why I've been focused on playing it.