What Funcom need is more money.
How about making us addicts an offer we cannot refuse?
I bet that I am not the only one who would jump at a chance to become lifetime member for 200 euros. Sweet-en the deal with account wide bags, quest bags, resource bags, portals and other quality of life improvements.
The income should be used to hire additional people to finish the already started projects. Hopefully this would bring back a lot of players who are waiting for new/improved pvp, crafting and raid content. These players could then generate enough money for funcom to compensate for the lifers.
(I would probably pay even more to be an official AoC backer with some perks. But don't tell Funcom :-) )
I also like the idea to outsource some of the grunt work to the community. Or perhaps even better "borrow" parts of the maps of the secret world and import them into conan.