Originally Posted by
Edge-
Eh, it had largely the same effect. I've not seen any indications that it "preserved" server communities at all in my experience. Hell, it's rare that anyone even chats when I've done group content using the automated group finder.
If anything, the only reason it's still locked to your server only is because of technical challenges getting it working with cross server. Because cross server grouping is desperately needed to help bolster the population queuing and improve queue times.