And depending on exactly how accurate "2 years away" is, you may or may not know about the
Mesmer buff, the
Assassin/Monk farming "nerfs", the
Ritualist buff, the
Zaishen Quests/Coins and
Nick the Traveler.
Community is going pretty strong -- people have joined or come back to work on their Hall of Monuments, but that's mostly resulted in title-grinding. So I can't say whether that helped the PUG sitch. 7-hero update probably didn't help in that regard. But, as said, Embark Beach should help you find a group if you need one. The Zaishen Quests also help -- people tend to PUG on the days that a mission/dungeon/boss/vanq is the Zaishen.