Hi spart_commander,
So this is my opinion. I played my fair bit of MP some years ago and got some experience, so I'm not a random noob. Not that I'm someone you may know, I used to play mostly 1v1 CWB and still I wasn't in a clan or generally that much invested in building a reputation or whatnot.
Below you find the 3 main reasons why I stopped playing RTW online and started looking for something else (with RTW mods). I ended up playing Europa Barbarorum online, which solved the 3 problems, and never looked back since then.
1) Balance. Mostly it's the same factions that keep popping up in every battle at equal budget, and in order to make some factions
playable (not to be confused with
strong) you need to introduce money differences between the players, which is of course inserting a level of arbitrariness in the matchup.
2) Lack of variety. If you exclude a couple of factions, most rosters have only a handful of units. This leads to most factions having to rely on an incomplete roster, heavily lacking in some areas (cavalry/heavy infantry/archers/whatever) and thus forcing said factions to rely on gimmicky mechanics in order to win. Furthermore, something you see quite often is some factions spamming the same 3-4 units 99% of the battles you fight. I personally like to have different options when building an army, in order to be flexible and adaptable to different situations.
Also the fact that there are 4 Roman factions, coupled with the great strength and flexibility of the Roman roster, makes a lot of battles feel repetitive because of the overwhelming presence of Romans.
3) Lack of tactical depth. Low defence, low morale and high unit speed (especially cavalry, we all know how badly this game is dominated by cavalry) usually mean that a lot of tactical manoeuvring is impossible and battles are over waaay to fast (IMHO, of course).
When I watched your last MP video, I saw the duration of the recorded game is 946k frames, or whatever the numbers in the top right corner are. For a 4v4. In my mindset, 964k is nothing: in Europa Barbarorum 964k is more or less the standard length of a 1v1, and because of that you have more time to think and act tactically.
This may be one of the biggest turnoffs for newcomers: micro skills come with time, and more experienced players with superior micro usually roll over newer players regardless of the tactic and the approach, just by sheer micro speed. Speed is important, don't get me wrong, but it shouldn't be everything.
As a side note, another turnoff may be the toxicity of some players. I often met trashtalkers who constantly whined on everything and yelled at newer players when they did something wrong. I didn't care that much at the time and I still don't, but this may be frustrating for someone who just started playing. That's why I always tried to act friendly and offer suggestions/help when meeting an inexperienced player.
Something that I'd like to see is some advertisement: if tournaments are hosted, let the crowd know! If expert from HoS or CoH clans are fighting for the Cup of Nations, let the crowd know! Here on TWC you can do as much advertisement as you want. Twitch streams may do something as well: if a third player (possibly someone who knows what he's doing) observes the game and comments on stuff, we may get quality commentaries on quality games.
Anyway, those were my two cents. Good luck for your efforts, I really wish you the best! I sincerely enjoy your commentary, you have a good knowledge of the game and you give the right amount of information on units, mechanics and tactics. Keep up the good work.