I see two points being discussed here.
Management
Since 2006, I've seen many administrative bodies behind the wheel of this server, and I've grown quite friendly with the vast majority of them. This server has had a tremendous journey - it's light years beyond whence it came. Consider this: You play this game for free, and [between you and me] probably downloaded San Andreas for free. Donators [such as myself] likely donated the minimum dollar amount to reap the exclusive content that the staff created for you. Yet, we still feel entitled? I've seen worse management in actual video games with a fleet of I.T personnel administrating them. The kids running this server are doing a significantly better job than adults getting paid full-time salaries to run similar games, and everyone needs to take a moment to recognize that. The programmers and event coordinators have done an absolutely brilliant job. They built a platform upon which I built several childhood memories that I'll end up dying with. Honestly, could you spare the time to do a better job than them? Would you spend six hours per day focusing on improving a communityless-server in a game that's well-beyond a decade old? No? Okay, me either.
Player count
You have to remember that this game was created over a decade ago, and has two newer, more-relevant titles. I played SA-MP like a madman during my high school and college breaks. What happened? Well, newer games came out. Familiar faces in SA-MP stopped returning. Responsibilities began piling up. Our player count is completely reasonable, and is a reflection of how old this video game is - NOT a reflection of poor administration. Most of us are old - we played GTA: SA when it was brand new, so it's somewhat of a nostalgia trip. Introduce SA-MP to a 16 year old, an he'd be bored to death. The community isn't going to grow - at least, not in first-world countries where better games are common. So, we need to return to the server. Does everyone have time for that? I really don't have time to play every day. However, if I received a monthly newsletter with a title of "LW's Monthly Reunion: RWW Tournament & AASA Cruise", I'd take the day off work to be there. So, in my opinion, the answer isn't getting the player counts back up every day. The answer is getting large spurts of activity, and then go back to nothing for the rest of the month. Eventually, people would count on there being a monthly tournament of some sort, and would join the server to practice ahead of time. This is what'll bring up the player count.
Anyways... That's all! Thanks!