I only have one question DeeKay

currently new 1.8... blocks are only available in market or by crafting as we had no expansion of the worlds an no new worlds added when these blocks were added, if you propose to remove the market and not create new world, or expand borders on current worlds, where do people get these blocks at a reasonable cost?  Crafting is quartz heavy while mining in their biomes plentiful.

I suppose I forgot to mention the world borders. If there were to be no wipe and if the market were to be removed, then yes an extension of perhaps all world borders would be in place to compensate for this, which is still much better than adding a new world. Obviously you can imagine a full wipe wouldn't have this issue, which was where my post was coming from, which is why I hadn't mentioned this.

After reading through everyone's responses and having a few days to think about this, a lot of my original thoughts have changed a little. Here goes.

Complete wipe of the server (all worlds will be available for download)
This was honestly the thing I was looking forward to the most and it's a real shame it's off the table now. I think it's taken far too long for this to have been brought up, and unfortunately because of that, it's become something almost unacceptable within the community. I know not everyone sees eye to eye on this subject and it's become a lot more controversial than I would have ever expected it to be, but in my eyes I think a clean slate would have benefited the server greatly and given a fresh outlook and a way to consolidate and bring things back together.

On the similar topic of adding a new world for 1.9; I don't like this idea at all. This kind of thing has always been our knee-jerk reaction to giving people more space, and every time it's added more to the problem than it did fix it. It's separated the players more and more every time and caused more of an eyesore every time. At this point, if there's not going to be a wipe, I'm more in favour of keeping the number of worlds the way they are than adding any new ones.

Simplification or removal of the economy system.
I think the argument going around for this is that our current money/market system is broken. (trying to stay clear of the word economy) While I agree the money/market system probably isn't the way it intended to be, and that it had a lot of rough patches within the community in the past, I don't think it's necessarily broken. However, I'm still in favour of it being removed but for a much more simple reason than others might have. I simply want a more survival feel for the server, not just myself. You can say something like "well just don't use it" and I get it, but it goes much deeper than that. Every feature on the server is there for everyone and it reflects the server as a whole whether I choose to use it or not, and it might just be me being a pro-survival kinda guy, but I just think we need to consider going back a step and think more vanilla.

Addition of pvp modes
I was in favour for this at first, but as per my response above I think it would make more sense to have a whole world dedicated to PvP or even just a portion of the world being PvP. Perhaps the Nether and/or End worlds have some kind of PvP, as it would be somewhat immersive considering they're the most dangerous.

Addition of a player trading system
Same as above. Wouldn't hurt the server but isn't totally necessary for a survival server with a low player count. I think being able to chat with someone and organise to meet up somewhere is part of the survival experience.

Points system where players accumulate points for things like voting and doing everyday survival activities. These points can be used to buy protection or rare items.
I like the idea of being able to earn points from voting to spend in a separate store (my server does this and it has helped voting tremendously) but I'm on the fence about the idea of earning them from doing every day activities. I think it would make more sense to draw the line at voting and not try to make it a replacement for the current money/market system we have. I think it should be seen as a way to revamp the voting system and give players new rewards for voting.

Change to a player defined protection field system
I think the pstone system works just fine and this would only complicate things. Personally, I like being given a block I simply have to place and protect an area with no hassle. I think pstones are user friendly, convenient, and intuitive to use.

Other Thoughts
I see a lot of "this will help boost out player count" going around, and I don't think this should have been an argument or counterargument. I think any changes we make to the server would be neutral in terms of player count. The main thing these changes should be targeting is our community, and how we can help improve and revamp things to make them enjoyable once more to those who find the server to be stale. if we're thinking in terms of new players, it should be "how can we make the server appealing once more to any new players we could potentially receive."

On that note, I agree that advertising should be a high priority if the outcome is wanting a higher player count. I think starting with the revamp of the voting system is a good start and things can expand from there on.

Also, kind of interested why only one operator was consulted when there are several that still play on the server regularly, and not to single him out, but generally this is a staff decision and from what I know, Deekay is not currently staff on SMP. As shown in the past, your rank on SMP does not carry over to Creative, and so Creative ranks should not carry over to SMP.

I understand this was resolved privately and I'm not trying to spark another argument but merely get my own word in publicly on this topic and this topic alone.
My involvement behind the scenes was purely development related. It was simply my way of extending my assistance to Optical and everyone else, and discussing ways in which the development of the server would be impacted if these type of changes were to be put in place.

I understand you felt it was maybe unfair that others missed out on the discussion, people who probably deserve it more than I did. But I don't think my rank on SMP should dictate who/what I talk to/about, but instead my reputation as a whole.

Ouch. Are you only getting this error when trying to connect to the creative server?
Few things that might fix it:

1. Reinstall Java
2. Update drivers
3. In Minecraft go to: Options > Video Settings > Use VBOs > ON
& Options > Video Settings > Use VSync > ON

These are just some things I've read while quickly googling, good luck!

There's a few new people that have joined the team since the announcement, they are:

Developers: Waddlaswe
Builders: UnknownHedgehog, Astriii

Welcome to the team guys!

No I don't really agree at all, it wasn't hurting anything simply being there like the rest of the Creative boards. I wasn't trying to blow this up and it honestly doesn't phase me one bit, but if my opinion matters at all, to me it just seemed unnecessary to have deleted one board and not the rest, that's all.

I posed one too but unfortunately the Classic Support board was deleted entirely