I am an old school Bushtarion player and decided to check out how the playerbase has been getting on, unfortunately it seems very dead!
I think the main reason why the playerbase hasn't grown, is firstly due to an inactive game owner, and secondly due to people moving on and the game not hitting the next generation.
I don't really have the time to go on the computer and work together with an alliance and co-ordinate attacks/defends any more, as I work and cannot commit to no sleep any more.
I would probably have time for a phone app of some sort, as I will not play it on a phone browser due to the site having a very poor phone layout. If there was a phone app, for Android/iPhone, then that would be a great start to bringing new players back to the game.
Although I cannot help directly with the development process, I can make a suggestion to software that would make the dev/testing process easier for your existing code base, as I work for a company who specialises in selling software, and specifically in this case - application development tools, and I could get a hold of the software at a cheaper price than the standard RRP. The software in mind is provided by
www.embarcadero.com, and they supply very good tools for people interested in mobile app development, if you're interested in understanding how this would benefit the development cycle, PM me for further information.
Personally I think the game still has potential and if it hit the phone market, it would definitely be one of the top games out there.