I just read over the admin warnings to official factions and everyone was complaining about how certain ships should be put to official factions to increase incentive to join them as your average joe player.
My suggestion is to, like in the old days, bring back the PvP event server. I don't know what wars are going on a the minute but one that I'm confident on is Gallia vs Bretonia. So make a server, give access only to those who are in the official factions of each side, BAF, GRN, (BPA/Bowex/BMM+Gallia counterparts maybe too?) and set an autobuy ship for each side on sensible bases/planets and then get each side on teamspeak or something and video it/screen shot it and have a bloody good time.
As a community we used to be so chilled and up for anything but now everyone just whines.
Make a server, set the gear up, limit access to official faction members, organize your tactics and set up a date for the event in 1 month time or something.
Also can we have a cool easter egg hunt again like we did years ago? I can't remember it too well but I remember the admins had some commodities everyone had to buy in each house and it was a race.. was fun. These little out of the box fun ideas will bring back people. Making TurretA more powerful per second than TurretB won't do shizzle.