If we're dead set on the game not going anywhere (you know who you are), then perhaps we could solve its issues through the contests? Swap out fun prizes for things you need to play the game ok just Radiant Fire Crystals and make contests the endgame grind. Add in contests like "fastest time through the arcade", "most damage in lockdown with X loadout" and "get research data on prize box statistics" that don't require us to show our faces or make sock puppets since there will always be people that won't do anything artsy, and run one contest a week with rewards for all participants etc. And do keep the artsy contests around because that's great. Possibly add some in for poetry and things that are easy to create.
Then you start up an official chat and force the whole community onto that, get them coming up with strategies as to how to run X the fastest and direct all of them using your powers as a game master.
Participation = 50 radiant fire crystals
Top 50% = 100 radiant fire crystals
Top 25% = 150 radiant fire crystals
Top 10% = 250 radiant fire crystals
Top 1% = 1,000 radiant fire crystals
And you make all of these tradeable, so that everyone is at least somewhat interested. You could also mix it up sometimes and add in costumes or prize boxes or whatever else but the point is that instead of grinding FSC everyone would be making Sock Puppets. You go on, broadcast it to everyone via mail, post a link to the forum topic, everything. At the same time you can push the chat even further until it's rocking with knights. Get all those knights in there. New players get their tier worth of orbs/fire crystals whatever they need/want.