I think the problem is that the development cycle can never match the time frame in which player expect changes to be made. Therefore, I don't know that communication with the player base makes a lot of sense or is really needed.

I've taken the approach that giving feedback doesn't matter if the game isn't fun to play. An MMO, imo, will never change fast enough to justify paying a subscription fee to wait for the necessary fixes. MMO revolve around subscriptions and money and that's really the only method to use when giving feedback. It's binary, but forceful. Either I like the game or I don't.