Alot of people share the opinion that because N/A was fairly popular for the time that it existed, it must have meant that it was either doing something right or that it was very good however I'm more than convinced that (like you said) if the devs hadn't touched the server and left it, it would have died out within a couple of weeks and would have the traffic of about 5 players max like once a week, and that would have benefited them more than shutting it down pre-maturely.
The design of ridiculous moments in games is only something that works in short term periods; that's why I used the word 'moments'. This ties in with the idea of 'quiet time' which if you want info on, I'd reccomend watching a great video that Super Bunnyhop made on the topic. I don't expect anyone to watch the whole video but skip to 1:34 to the most relevant part of what I'm about to say.
Just replace "Saint's Row" with "N/A server" and you'll probably understand what I'm getting at.
"The whole [game mode] is a non-stop barrage of over-the-top action [...] and it isn't evenly distributed [...], without some more spacing between the ridiculousness, it's hard to [...] appreciate the loudness of the action so that we can be prepared for it and understand why it's important"
Is a constant flurry of explosives raining from every side of dotf bad? No, it isn't. However after a while it just get's boring and fustrating. MB2's limited lives mechanic means regular Open gameplay is well balanced between action and silence. The atmoshphere of being the last survior on your team, creeping through the map constantly on alert to any sort of sound or sight that might betray the alert of an enemy nearby is great, and is neccasary after tense shoot outs between teams in corridors or chokepoints.
N/A isnt even something new, !RTE exists and it's pretty fun. It's official, not buggy, has way more options for fun and mainly isn't something that the devs are against.
Edit: Also, the title thread is honestly misleading since it isn't really about server-side modifications but just an attempt to revitalise the previous thread about N/A