Mythic's own title, Dark Age of Camelot, did this successfully --- I know I played DAOC for 5 yrs. Why can't the same idea be brought over into UO in the same fashion? Where we have a new "gate menu" option that takes us into the other clustered servers? This would help the low population servers engage in more player interaction and have more available to them. The EM's from the shards would all equally service that cluster for events, etc. Basically we wouldn't loose our lands, properties, or small shard feel, yet gain (optionally) the ability to cross-shard whenever we wanted to. I see this as a true benefit to the player base.
Gate Menus could function like this:
Select Shard (defaults to the one you are in) > Select Facet (like you see today) > Select City (like you see today)
[_] Atlantic
[X] Catskills
[_] Lake Superior
Gate Menus could function like this:
Select Shard (defaults to the one you are in) > Select Facet (like you see today) > Select City (like you see today)
[_] Atlantic
[X] Catskills
[_] Lake Superior