Some ideas tossed around that I believe would work well.. Although these were more on the spot ideas, and have plenty of room for improvement, or the axe.. Constructive feedback is always the best to improve or remove ideas
Keep in mind, these are opinions, no need to rage over something I say.
Rewarding player co-operation in various ways such as getting a larger plot area for groups of players wanting to build together: Instead of 3 players using 80x80 next to each other(19200 block rectangle) , they might get a 160x160 plot (25600 block square) for all three to share, as an example.
Having an alternative to the storehouse, which I rarely see being used, would be to have a sort of "Bank" where machines are set up to allow players to trade their items for various other items. A simple example would be the ability to trade some iron for some copper, or some diamonds for a piece of iridium..
Another alternative would be players change (I believe it's Iron?) into credits, where they purchase items using credits like a vending machine.. This idea would be further supported through players trading credits with other players items. Maybe there is a player with lots of iron, but you're not at a stage you could offer anything of real value to that player, trade for credits, and when the player has enough, they can purchase something useful from the bank.
Further supporting the above idea, players who help out on the server with projects, such as building the roads around the map, or helping with community builds could be given some sort of credit. Granted not everyone will be on at the time to help, this might seem unfair in some cases... However, you can still work on a project even when there aren't many people on.
It has been said that Quarries are extremely overpowered for what they do.. Sure, Chrome and Titanium (I believe?) can be difficult to obtain, yet some players create a quarry in their first day, as other players let newer ones use machines anyway.. At that point, the whole game experience changes, due to not having to go out and mine, and getting thousands of materials from just a few over-night runs.. The issue comes in the form of setting and forgetting, the quarry works at an incredibly fast rate with nothing but some MJ's. Furthermore, there's a blatant lack of care when it comes to how people abandon quarries after mining.. It should be player's responsibility to remove water, create some kind of surface (maybe glass so people know it was quarried..) and add a label saying you quarried it, although I should add, this is my opinion.
-Some solutions mentioned were to possibly change the quarry into a one use reward, limiting the number on the map at once and allowing the use once (example would be purchasing the use through credits above, although that's just an example)
-Another solution would be increasing the cost of a quarry, making it more of a later game item to compensate for it's overpowered behavior.
-Perhaps removing the chunk loading feature and forcing Personal Anchor usage, so players have to be on for their quarries to run.
-Other ideas would include restricting access of quarries to certain areas, disallowing use in Twilight Forest for example, or perhaps only being able to use them in Mystcraft Ages created for mining purposes, if we use Mystcraft..
When I signed up, the thing that caught my attention more than anything else was the paragraph in the OP talking about being a tight-knit community, and coming together to build while helping each other survive. I thought this was great, I was tired of servers where players traveled off on their own and built whatever they wanted, and never interacted except for some item trading here and there. Yet So far the only real community project I've seen has been the Wall project, which a few players have been working on. I believe the server should have more group-style events.
(Rambling on because I can't fall asleep.. Sorry for spelling/grammar mistakes. Good night everyone..)