An entire team dropped out of the game creating an inherently unbalanced scenario.
Captain drama.
The AI was too strong and defeated much of the theoretical point of the game, and left at least one entire team (supplicants) pretty disappointed.
Server drama ensued. Both your server and the much touted llamaserver have their pros and cons, and I have nothing against your server, but it seems to require way too much of your personal attention to get things done, which creates excessive delays in communication, which seems to cause a lot of stales. People have been taking those well, for the most part, but to me that is one of the most offputting things about your server. The llamaserver has its moments too, though
The game ended before end game.
It's pretty hard to say whether BI did anything at all, and I don't think anyone has even mentioned the impact of that. Except septimius wishing he could have bought barbarians.
I mean, not that it was a total failure or anything, but you seem to be painting an excessively rosy picture of things. People did get a taste of team play though, and have an idea now of how team games can work. I do like team games and I think that has been a good aspect of this.