I seem the remember before my 8 year hiatus that the test shard would be wiped on average about every 2 weeks or so. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but still a fairly consistent happening. It's not like it was a guaranteed schedule or anything, just what I remember being the accepted average lifespan for TC chars and housing.
I believe it should be run more like how it was in the past. Similar to how I stated above. Every 48 hours I think is a bit extreme, but 2 weeks or maybe even a month would work fine. I'm certain that if it was wiped only every 3 weeks, it would still be easy to find plots for the even largest of homes... If would I read here and what I'm told is true, than anything would be an improvement over how it currently is. I know a lot of people rely on test to design a new home prior to committing to it on their home shard. (Which I believe even though it's not testing additions or whatnot to the game, is still in the spirit of a test shard)
I don't know where I'm going with this anymore, so I'm just going to stop there. lol...