In fact this game has never needed so many servers, I don't know why there are so many, and yes, reducing the amount to 5-8 servers would be good (disregarding the effects of the breakdown of ecosystems and server economy). Every player base concentrated on 5-8 servers would make the game much more social and interactive with each other. Seriously does anyone really know what the active servers are besides Epona? I'm really curious, all epona maps are full of players.
because there are no dungeons at all in this game so the only way to level up farm etc is in shared spaces and when a bunch of people are doing that on the same server due to there being very few it just becomes hell for everyone. Imagine trying to lix in carrow against 10 other people, even if you grouped you'd all just be standing there waiting around for things to spawn wasting your lixes. The only thing you can do despite the amount of people is cook but even then you need to pick wheat and other unfathomable which you'd have to compete with other players with. It's just not a good idea unless all servers were beyond dead. Although I think having a shared gold bank between all servers on the same account would be a cool idea.