Right now, #2 is very unpopular. Even if #1 is full, you barely see more than 10 players on #2. I guess that's somehow because it's simply not known that there's a second server at all, which additionally shares stats/exp. I think it wouldn't be wrong to place a "This is our 2nd server - same stats, same levels - IP: xxx"-message between all those other ones, like "sponsored by Core64" and so on.

Ever tried attempting to play with 2 friends on a full server with auto-redirect on the last slot?

Forcing luck, that's what they do in China, isn't it?

Yea, that's that large country in Australia.