An idea for the next generation.
Some servers have a reward system for various activities. PCs get tokens that they can save up and use to "buy" things. Examples are: Change to PC looks (hair, tatoo), name an item, or trade in for XP.
Personally I would remove the subjectiveness of the rewards and tie them to known quantities. For example, keeping a char dev thread, or playing for a two hour block of time (awarded once per week).
There could be subjective things as well: Being spotted helping a new player, being seen sharing information about a world quest with others. These are a bit harder to define and rely on GMs seeing and recognizing this stuff. That's why I prefer the "good citizen" quantifiable rewards.
Some sort of data mining of the logs could lead to interesting information and feedback. For example, a table with PC name, hours played, xp gained, lines spoken. Break it down further by PC to see how many hours played in a party vs. solo, which areas were they in (a house, tavern, forest), etc.
With this information, each "customer" could be scheduled for attention. If it is Bob the Slayer's habit to RP heavily on Sunday nights (solid chunk of time, in a party, lots of emotes, etc.), then he could be flagged for a GM visit then. Perhaps the rest of his playing time is clearly sporadic and alone during the week.
This may help give the GM team a better understanding of each player's habits so they can maximize their own efficiency in taking note of the PCs.
Basically, I'm suggesting setting up a system to reward behavior that is conducive to the success of the server and community. With hundreds of PCs, though, looking at trends from collected data may be the only feasible way.
