Well, I agree that it might be odd to complain about SL dying. It's not a process a single person could evaluate properly as there are too many parameters having an impact on the number of active users.
What I experience on my own is that more and more sims I visit are deserted... I further experience that the traffic on the sims I frequently visit is decreasing. I further experience that sims without any business purpose are decreasing (sims only having beautiful gardens, landscape architecture, themes without any commercial purpose). This makes it for me less attractive to visit SL.
Imo the insane land prices are one reason for interested persons or groups to refrain from living out one's fantasy by building and creating one'S own world on a sim. Linden should offer sims for non-commercial use for a much lower land fee than currently. Maybe land fees should depend on business turnover of that sim.
I'm of course aware that land prices are not the only reason for an obvious decrease of active users. SL is in competition with lots of MMORPGs today.
Finally, I hope the focus of SL will shift away (at least a bit) from that adult-oriented stuff back to playing and exploring and simply meeting people from all around the world. That's what's imo the most compelling feature of SL.
Therefore, good luck Lindens!