Current Private Server State And Future For Us

Honestly...after seeing what kind of dumpster fire became of Classic (and Classic TBC), I hope people will finally open their eyes instead of giving in to Blizzard's easy fix of nostalgia. all about wow private servers

As for your questions:

1 - I don't think it'll be that "big", nor will it really impact population on private servers...since some of them have been around for a long while now, and I don't know if people would be willing to pay a monthly sub only to start over again and having to deal with the extreme elitism, absolutely effed economy and whatever Blizzard will decide to implement/eff up (probably the Token or some other crap);

2 - The answer is probably "Whatever expansion you enjoyed the most"...or, if you didn't play WoW, the one that catches your interest more; Having said that...if I had to suggest an expansion to a new player, I'd probably go with MoP: The questlines are pretty cool, the zones are amazing imo and class design was overall at its best;

3 - I'm personally having a blast on Project Ascension. MCCAINSOURCE As someone who used to play WoW retail on and off over the years, I got no interest in playing all those "x1 blizzlike tbc/wotlk/cata 100% true experience" servers...I've seen and done it all on retail already; Hence why this server was a pleasant breath of fresh air for me (and I've seen this sentiment echoed quite a lot) with all its customized content and systems.