Updates are not the reason why people are not playing anymore. It's the fact that the things that are around, are not working and that is quite frustrating.
Auto flights are still active, some twgc divs still have 0 fighters(also no money to being a grappling champion), QFC's that take 2 weeks to start, auto order feature that does not work, multis, laundry, pretending the improvements forum section is relevant, lacking a proper intro(tutorial) to the game, etcs. These are not issues that require a game upgrade, just some maintenance or interest. No need for a proper development team to sort this out, just some administration.