I do believe changes to the [players command is warranted.
There's no reason we can't try a few things remembering we can always revert to what we have now.
Any "wonder" of who's out and about in the world is lost and I understand a players desire to not always show publicly in a game. I'm not aware of any successful MMO that also does this. If anyone has a link to one I'd be interested in reading how they handle/handled issues.
Some things that could replace it:
- Look at coding the guild roster menu to not only show your guild members online but also any in an alliance linked to that guild.
- A "friends" list where players could add/remove each other, requires accepting like a party, but otherwise looks like the players list.