Chicken, WA has always been active regardless lack of secure logins and absence of ranks. Nobody today talks about those two things on Worms, and if they do its rare, normally on TUS forums. Hosting has always been a major difficult obstacle, but yet, people have found a way. We have even survived without new update for a decade and activity has always been more or less like now, mins the competitive side of things.
WA is community sustained and thrives of the kindness and passion of others. If you want to make league active, look forward, and form new connections.
To hope for old school people to return is a passing daydream. If a person has enough passion for a game they would continue to play now and then without excuse that league is not enough active.
A new modern TUS would entice old and new people.