I definitely think people care. We had lots of feedback during that brief period where membership was dropped by load system. I they're playing and enjoying, and almost certainly things are just working well overall by now. Let me tell you my recent experiences.
I created a random burglar the other day with some unrelated testing in mind (just wanted to test new movement stuff). I cleared Privateer's Hold and made way to Gothway Garden. I rented a room for a night, stole a horse, cart, and some other gear. The next morning, I took out a huge bank loan with no intention of ever paying it back and jumped on a ship to Wayrest.
Once in Wayrest, I rented a room for a couple of months. I started picking pockets (and running from guards) by day and breaking and entering to loot shops at night. At one point it started snowing and I scaled up a building to watch snow fall over the city.
I fought random encounters at night. I stored loot in my tavern room and set custom icons for them. At one point I was finally caught by the guards, so I surrendered and plead guilty. I was released a few days later with my room rental and all its contents still intact. After playing on this thieving bender for a while, I received my letter of invitation to the Thieves Guild. That's my next stop for this character, to start working through those guild quests and see his adventures take him.
I started a character to test movement code, and the next thing I knew I was completely sucked into a game with all these little systems I could explore. Getting that invite was just icing on the cake for me. I'm actually playing this thing like I played Daggerfall all those years ago. And it feels incredible and fresh all over again. It's the same game, but it's smoother and more comfortable. It's easier on the eyes. And it has mods to enrich the whole experience.
I guess my point is that it's not important which system people focus on now. They're all finally working together as a unified whole. It's actually possible to
play this thing now and have fun with it. Guilds and spells and taverns and banks and quests and diseases and formulas and loans and monsters and maps and... all this other stuff!
Guys, we've really built something special here. Now we just have to wrap it all up and make it hum.