Tabula Rasa... Autopsy?

Is sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa stumbling towards extinction? Eurogamer certainly seem to think so:

Today's piece, sadly, feels more like an autopsy. Tabula Rasa isn't cold on the slab, but it's certainly heading that way.

And so yet another sci-fi MMO heads off into troubled waters. What's going on here? Can Eve's esotericism really be the only way to create a reasonably successful sci-fi game? Do people simply not want to play in a character-based science fiction world? Are we addicted to spaceships?

Okay, readers. What would you have done if you were Lord British? How would you fix the science fiction MMO and make something to challenge World Of Warcraft? Is it as simply as World Of Starcraft? Or do we need a licence, like Warhammer 40k? Or do you, like me, think that the lessons are there to be learned from City Of Heroes, Planetside, Guild Wars, and Eve Online? Are the MMO developers simply guilty of not learning from the mistakes of past games? What is the answer for the science fiction MMO?