Unfortunately the attempt to "decrease the learning curve" leads to a less interesting game -- and quite frankly the challenge of ee as compared to literally every other game out there is why I'm still around.

Yes, a small% of total visitors will log in every day for the first week, and an even smaller % of those people will become decently productive members of the community.. because that reflects the small% of people in the real world who are looking for a game that is actually challenging to learn. I don't think that's able to be changed at all, because it's a cultural issue and not something within the scope of control of this game.

Most people in the US will not stick with something where you cannot do it on your own. To me, any assumptions that putting a lot of effort into making ee compliant with "facebook" [the ultimate in immediate gratification] will somehow increase the longrun playerbase for ee seems wildly off base.
step 1: Facebook
step 2: ???
step 3: Untold riches

What would bring people? Using some tagline about a game that's simple to learn, but difficult to master could bring in more of the types who enjoy strategy games like go, pente, chess and the like.