I've actually written about this recently [http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237221], albeit a bit indirectly.
WAR has its flaws. I'd say the most critical issues right now are fixing a server population spread out across too many servers, stabalizing client to server traffic and bugfixing in the tier 4 campaign (especially in sieging of fortresses and capital cities), and dealing with crowd control with 22 currently active, somewhat mirrored, but altogether different, classes. Mythic has their work cut out for them.
But the reason I continue to do what I do for the WAR fansite community, and why I keep playing, is the constant hotfixing, interaction of the developers directly with the community to solicit feedback, and the "big picture" of the design - which, a lot of people agree, has huge potential and no danger of going down the same road as Hellgate London and Tabula Rasa anytime soon.
The other factor, as many people have referred to, is "MMO stigma" - whether that is from WoW players looking for the "WoW experience, only with decent PvP", dragging with them the "if it isn't good in one month, leave" mentality, or whether it is from people coming to immediate conclusions about the product based upon associations with EA or Games Workshop. Many of these stigmas are unfair, but in the post-WoW world, they must be lived with, dealt with, and adapted to.
If I had to make a guess, WAR is at a critical time in its life, whether to shore up its subscribers and build itself into the PvP MMO alternative for many players, or bleed subscribers until the plug is pulled. As someone waist-deep in the community, I can say we still receive tens of thousands of posts and threads a day, and many people who've quit have since poked their head in and considered a return. It's doing decently. It could, however, do better. I'm often critical (constructively so) of what Mythic is doing, but overall, I'm satisfied and confident about the game, and it is, dare I say it, an MMO that a casual player like myself can get in and play for whatever time I want. It deserves the comparison as the "Counterstrike" of MMOs, and I hope it does well, because competition can only be a good thing.