You can't say people are leaving official server because of lack of money. It would mean that people had money until Interlude, and since Kamael release they rapidly lost their money and the official server lost its players? Just makes no sense.
All old-school players which I knew, from official and private servers, either left lineage or started playing other game, like Aion (although it sucks :/ ). I myself remain playing Lineage 2 only because of free-world pvp. There is so few games with that kind of pvp like Lineage 2. And it is the best pvp system I came across so far. The only other game I saw with this system was MU Online, which was my first MMORPG ever actually :D
I think year 2011/2012 will be a lethal year for Lineage 2, and it will die out with the new release of Goddess of Destruction. Goddess of Destruction is in my opinion nothing but a copy of Aion (so many visual aspects from Aion), which is fatal mistake of NCSoft. They think Aion has dominated the world so that why they are trying to make Lineage 2 look more like Aion, but Aion is a failure. Yes it has nice graphics, it has nice quest systems, but PvP system is boring, there's many ways to cheat in PvP (faction kill cheating), and the "castle sieges" in Aion are some random boring fortresses with bosses inside, you finish off the boss, you get the fortress, hf. Furthermore year 2011/2012 will be so full of new AWESOME mmo-scene-changing games such as Continent of the Ninth, T.E.R.A, Blade & Soul, etc., these games will give Lineage 2 coup de grace and it will end.
Still Lineage 2 will remain in my memory for EVER. It was such a great fun playing it when I was young, Lineage 2 tought me English, which I sucked at when I was young. Lineage 2 made me money because of Virtual Currency Trade. Lineage 2 has overtaken a piece of my heart.
Thanks for reading. It's 0:16 AM in the morning, I am sleepy and going to sleep.
Lain.