[Rant] This game's practically dead in terms of actual content.

I honestly don't know about catering to GMS' demographic, What is it exactly? mind you it's global maplestory. World tour and the like are available, all kind of different content is incorporated into the game from all kind of cultures.
I think it's the opposite, they've tried to distinguish themselves too hard, and made too many custom changes. Or maybe it was too little. Dudewitbow; you're a bit wrong about that one, read my post where I mention botting, also they've done a lot of changes besides switching to more harsh activation systems. But yes you're still somewhat right.

It's not World Tour or anything like that. The business decisions that work in Korea will not work in North America (which is still not the entire userbase of Global MS). They're not the same group of people with the same style of thinking.