A ridiculous amount of people have quit, to put it bluntly. W36 has as many players as early worlds that are not affected as much by inactivity(If there is such a world)
Yes a lot of people have quit, but too be fair I don't think it is so much due to anything negative in terms of world progression. I think a large part of the root cause for the lowish player numbers is the lack of morale. There is simply no protection for small players on this world, with these settings. On morale worlds 100k point turtles can survive for months in near core continents because they aren't worth the nukes to clear. Here everyone of those players is vulnerable as any village full of def is as easy to clear as the next one. I think that the loss of all the smaller accounted players are the main factor damaging the player numbers. In real terms though although these player numbers effect the total, and make it seem like the world is in worse shape, I honestly think this is not so much the case. This world has proportionally far larger accounts than is normal for this stage of a server.
As a comprision
W36 at around 8 months old at 1.6 speed has a player village average of 28.74 villages per player
W32 on the other hand is a 10 month old speed 2 world with morale it has an average of 27.65 per player
(not entirely sure if that average is calculated including barbs or not)
But in any case it shows that accounts have progressed very rapidly on this world.