In the long distant past I've seen other huge games try to lock down to limitations like caps and invite policies and their playerbases and prospective players acted like they were cliquish for daring to keep people out, so they didn't go through with it. Then I watched the mods burn out and those same games gradually imploded under their own weight or their mods just eventually burnt out and had to close down.

The game is immensely popular and going invite-only, capping, and waitlisting it is the smartest thing they can do, given the interest. Anyone that complains about that isn't factoring in the lessons learned from some of the dead mega-games of RP past. The more popular it is, the more methods they're justified in using to lock it down, including using multiple methods simultaneously.

It's disappointing but it's the trolley problem. The health of a game for the majority matters more than some players having to find their fun elsewhere.