"It serves no purpose other than showing us, and anyone just happening by to this site that EVE is pathetic and has a small minority customer base of 27k folks avg over the last two years and at peak times the gold sellers and boxers log on everything. Now move along."

Try again, buddy. What this goes to show is that CCP is still leading the industry as far as a stable "Single Shard" set up. They're showing that their technology is able to handle Fifty-four THOUSAND people online at the same time. Your precious World of Warcraft or Aion is lucky to handle a couple thousand at a time per server.

So pats on the backs are wholly deserved for CCP and EVE Online. They're showing it can be done, and that it works, which paves the way for games that allow players to make a significant impact to what they're playing, instead of just another WoW clone.