DAOC's servers were very stable. The game, however, was not even close to being done. Hibernia 30+ was not itemized at all. They had placeholders for the gear. Classes weren't balanced very well. The first two months nerfs were abysmal. They had too many levels and not enough content, also, for all three realms, but it was really bad for Hibs. I'm not even addressing the fact a level 10 healer could endlessly stunlock 50 Albs, and other fun game 'features' early on...Out of the very early mmo's DAOC was quite decent at launch , meaning purely mechanical , I remember playing it quite a bit with little downtime at launch.
Rift I'd agree for modern mmo's was very stable , huge queues , but still stable.
Give me queues over that, please....