I have no idea how much control over all the variables you guys have while running an "un-modded" server, I can only tell you what I've seen over the years.
Personal pumpjacks are nice, but when I buy one I rarely leave my base to do anything besides filling/emptying quarries and processing ore/making fireworks. They equate to infinite resources so it's extremely easy to make a huge base in the first week, get bored and end up logging on just to keep it from disappearing.
This month I decided to play without buying one and ended up running roads and a monument for the first time in probably over a year. With a pumpjack I'd just sell HQM and buy whatever I needed, now it's taking me longer to build everything and encouraging me to get out of my base more and set up vending machines again (being short on scrap all the time). I also can't build as fast cause I can't fill up Stone and HQM quarries in the first 2 days.
I can see from flying around that Pumpjacks sell pretty well, but they seem to contribute to a lot of the larger problems on the performance side. Not being able to look into all the large bases I can't be 100% sure, but I'd guess a lot of it is furnaces and planters for making tea. Everyone wants pure teas, so making it less resource intensive to get them may help (fewer planters, composters, etc), if you even have control over that. Also, I like the idea of a limited number of TCs which combines well with the bag limit. You have to be more thoughtful about placing them. Player placed items/building decaying when not under a TC seems like a good idea too.
I'm sure you guys could come up with something to replace Pumpjacks in the store, maybe just encouraging subscriptions. If the server is more lively later into wipe, people might buy other things more often. I hope everyone will keep in mind that running these servers isn't free, we all have to contribute a bit to make sure they're here when we want to try out our ideas or new features.
For me, if upkeep is enabled, I lose half of what draws me to this server, the No Upkeep. Some weeks I'm too busy to spend a lot of time farming, but I still play here cause I know my base will be there when I have time as long as I drop in now and then.
Again, I don't know the numbers behind the scenes or how much control you guys have over how the game works on this server and still counting as "Vanilla," this is just from my observations over the last few years playing here.
