1. We have a small playerbase, and usually the WNx Chicago server is the only one filled, with many other servers remaining empty.
2. That was the "Doorman is god" server... for some reason they think it's a good idea to tell the master server that there's 10 players in their server when in reality there are none (I'm not sure how they do that, but it's awfully stupid when there's hardly anyone playing anyway).
As for you getting connection problems to the WNx server (I assume that's the other one you went to), it could be your connection, or the server may have been having some temporary problems. Try it again later.