When you say lacked substance what do you mean? Maybe its because you played the test client, i think theyve fleshed it out a lot since the last tests. Im an oldschool hardcore lineage 2 player, so i do enjoy a good grind but nowadays i dont have the time to commit to such hard games. I cant stand anything WOW based or WOW clones. Aion was pretty decent but i couldnt get into it due to it being realm vs realm. I only enjoy open pvp games which is why i think TERA will work for me, and with it being the core original Lineage 2 team developing it i think itll be great!
Its going to Alpha this week, it will be released in Spring 2012.