First of all, it is only speculations at this point, but if we have to wait until the same gear is available to get our characters back, then it's going to take way longer than 6 months, kids...
Some of us have gear from AQ20, which is only going to be available after the war effort is done (again, yay!), which will only begin 2 months after BWL is cleared, which will only begin 2 months after MC is cleared by some raid split across all the timezones in the world, in T0 gear. We are talking about a very long period of time here. Of course, that is if the announced timeline is kept. Needless to say, I believe this timeline is a big mistake, but apparently that's just me.
Anyway by that time, we will have maybe... 20 eligible people still playing? And we are talking about characters that, for the most part, don't even have a complete T1 gear. Sure, some of them have better gear but they are all gone today, chances are they won't even claim their characters because they are done with WoW. This is not going to change anything to the server, at all. There will be plenty of T2 and R14 gear everywhere by that time.
I started playing here in 2011 and was never told that every single thing I would do was going to be deleted at some unannounced date. I do not remember if "beta" was even written somewhere, but to be honest it was not clear at all that these years were "testing" in any way. It was just a server like any other. There was no way to know if the "official release" had happened or not. Because it did not matter. There was no plan for several years. Except for Daemon, the entire staff changed... Then we were given something like a two weeks notice this summer when they asked the community "hey what if we tried to do an official release because everything else failed to attract new players and we did not try that card yet?". And we agreed because we were told we would get the characters back. The server was supposed to be "frozen" (as in, saved, locked in time) for "a month or two" at first.
Of course we all want new players, and I'm indeed happy that you get to experience the quality of this server. Sincerely, it's amazing. Welcome, enjoy. But I do not really appreciate that now I'm basically being told to fuck off, especially by people who did not do anything here yet. Indeed it is the work of the developers but the server would not be here, about to (re)open, without the now called "beta" players either... Sure, private servers are unreliable, but if I was told everything I achieved here was going to be deleted, I would simply have played on any other server and would still have all my crap.
Really, I believe deleting everything would be extremely unfair to "beta" players. That is not at all what we agreed on this summer. And no, I don't want a lvl 60 char in shitty blue gear either, thanks tho! I have played this game for 10 years and have been on this server since 2011 and it does not even take me a month to get from lvl 1 to a complete T0, that does not compare at all. On the other hand, I would be happy to wait until MC is cleared, and then pay 1k in gold per character for example, but I would rather not wait 3 more years because I happen to have an ugly pair of boots from AQ20... This way, nobody (re)appears with a nice gear out of thin air. People who get their old characters will be the ones who are still active here. And if you do not want Superchaton back, don't claim her, receive a super exclusive VIP shirt instead or something. Simple as that. In these conditions, new players would have a complete T1 gear before I even get the chance to buy my own stuff back. Is that really too much to ask for?
I will be Butthurt the troll, nice to meet you all.