What are some of the changes to classes over the years?
Have there been any breakout roles due to new abilities? FD split-pulling etc
Have necromancers returned to being jack trades or are they still dots, in the sub 52 game they could do just about everything.
Enchanters/charm rule the day right up through GoD. Post-GoD they decline a lot in power. So you see a ton of chanters early, then the number drops off sharply between the decline and also all the new chanters realizing how high-maintenance and "difficult" the class actually is. Yeah they can roll things but it requires a substantial amount of effort.
Monks are the other big DPS meta, especially once they have the 1.0. Their DPS dominance continues well past GoD. Though they can't solo like chanters can early-on.
Around OoW, melee/tank classes that are raid geared start to be able to solo really quickly and effectively, to the point that they outclass casters. IIRC some time during the level 70 era I realized that my Zerker (not even a tank class) could tank and solo much better than the charm pets of the era could.
As for breakout roles...aside from chanter being way more integral to group composition (classic through GoD) than they used to be, I can't think of much.
Being level 40 for a month is kinda shitty, double loot was broken at the start (and you can still find NPCs that haven't been killed yet and still have single loot), zone level restrictions were broken, zone level restrictions for at least the Plane of Growth instance are still broken, the challenges are almost nonsensical.
It's baffling that the only challenge for level forty Classic is killing Velious era MotM Cazic Thule in revamped Fear with no Kunark challenge at all, only Yelinak for Velious and no Luclin anything.
It kinda sucks for me that Vaniki isn't doing well, because I made a pretty huge effort with it since launch to deck out for an actual run (as opposed to my usual "do first couple launches and then get busy with RL")
Like I can actually do this one for a few months but it's not looking promising for a long-haul server. I'm thinking there's a high likelihood that the pop will go up a lot more next month though. The 50 raise followed shortly after by 55 and 60, with AAs available at 55, are gonna give people a lot more to keep them engaged.
Having the cap sit at 40 for a month with one target to kill was kind of idiotic. Should have been a 45 raise halfway through it, along with a "Defeat Klandicar" cheevo or something.
And as has been pointed out a zillion times already, more achievements would have made a big difference in interest. Something for Kunark (at 50), something for Luclin (at 50), etc. More illusions or titles. Just like, anything.