I didnt notice an option for 2 or 3.
This really shouldn't be a poll because people are going to focus on what they selfishly want, rather than what is best for the server (instant gratification, rather than rewarded for hard work). Therefore viewing it from a strictly selfish perspective, how could I ever say that I want less than 8 characters? 8 characters gives me 80 lots, and the ability to be self sufficient if the players i am looking for are not online. in a game as competative as this, I want every advantage, therefore from a strictly selfish standpoint, I have to want the most amount of characters possible. So from that perspective, a poll would never work.
How this SHOULD happen, is that the owner should come up with a rule for how many different characters the server needs (for example 1500, i use this number as i think this is the amount SOE used as a guide when making the game). Said owner would then divide the number of active accounts by this number, to give him a character limit to work to. so for example, lets say there are 200 active accounts, well 1500/200 = 7.5, therefore players can have 8 characters (rounded up to the nearest whole number). As the server grows in popularity, the owner can then reduce the amount of characters each account is allowed by giving players 1 month notice of an impending character reduction per account. once we have 750 active accounts (which may or may not happen and if it does will be a long way off), then players can all keep 2 characters regardless of how the server grows.
The active accounts would be based on a 1 month weighted average of log in's