Not surprised Elidroth drank the "its just a name change" koolaid.
Just by reading that derp thread he made asking people why people play eqemu when they could be playing eqlive is reason enough to think he is a mongoloid
If this is a shell and sell they may be seeing what they could do to make money off the progression server/classic server market.
it all jives with removing community managers and relations, removing creative developers, keeping technical staff.
If you do not plan to make EQN and only Landmark, you do not need lore, story, quests or even art style direction.
If you do not intend to produce more content for EQ, EQ2 etc and plan to just squeeze out every last penny available running a skeleton crew to keep what has already been developed running you do not need the above either.
With P99 and being able to have full access on Test why would anyone pay to play or roll a f2p toon on live?
A smart business man could see this and decide EQs future is in TLP servers with no plans or need to continue further development.
Cease and desist P99, close Test, leave Live in its final state, merge everything onto one server and let it all slowly attrit until the cost to keep the lights on > the revenue generated from F2P or subs.
I personally would change the name if EQN is still to be developed. EQ may be the namesake and the only thing they ever really did that was successful enough to enter the pantheon (no pun intended) of great games but it's decade of gimp existence has marred it's once decent reputation.
Licensure of the EQN engine is also a good possibility with voxels being the buzzword these days. It is probably the best asset SOE had with the ability to generate revenue without SOE, EQ or any negative connotation attached to it, at least immediately. Then again it may be proprietary spaghetti code and unmarketable as well.