After over 10 years of owning Mainland, at its peak 2 sims worth and a castle estate covering most of that, I finally sold off my last quarter sim parcel yesterday. Thought it deserved a little bit of comment so:
1/ Tier is far too expensive and not sustainable long term if you have RL commitments (mortgage, kids, car, clothes, food). The recent reductions announced, in my opinion, don't even make a dent in this assertion and won't make people come back in droves from Open worlds where costs are a fraction (if it had been more of a reduction I might have kept a presence going a bit longer).
2/ Land bots and land flipping are alive and well! I thought this was all banned years ago along with hovering for sale signs and networked advertising boards, but evidently not?
3/ Still haven't lost faith with Second Life as an idea (and still maintain a private region for my Uni department) but Linden Labs not doing themselves any favours with pricing, and haven't done for a long time.
Rant over!