I'll give you another example of an upcoming change: Brysmendrik, the dragon out in the middle of nowhere north of Dralk, started out life as a Lunus. He had some dialog in one event and passed out the dragon techs for a very short week way back when. Since then, he's been taking up space for the most part.
As a general rule, introducing new NPCs for quests is discouraged, both because they take up system resources and because there are a lot of under-utilized NPCs out there. I needed an NPC for a quest, and Brysmendrik fit the bill perfectly.
Problem is, the NPC I need has to be a Helian.
Solution? Use Brysmendrik anyway. The only explanation I can offer is to shake my head sadly and say "He has some issues".
Given the choice between breaking the established lore for Brysmendrik in order to give him purpose and a long-term, meaningful part in people's game play, and conforming to lore by creating a new NPC and thus adding to the server load, lore loses.
It's never an easy decision, though, and not something anyone takes lightly.