It's a shame Ilum has gone by the wayside as it had such huge potential as a PVP area.
I think some changes in the concept of Ilum would garner a lot more interest and player activity. I was always a fan of the task bask objectives the PVP area in LOTRO had, whilst the actual pvp was lack luster.
To implement this wouldn't be huge but would incorporate a couple of minor quests and one major quest which would either be on a daily or weekly basis.
My thoughts on the major quest would be for a faction to hold all 5 nodes for 5min. Once this has been achieved the faction holding those nodes can then infiltrate the base of the opposing faction. The bases would have suitable defences in 3 - 5 rooms to challenge a raid (ops group) of players. In the final room would be a faction boss that would be challenging (world boss type maybe). Whilst this is happening, global announcements on Ilum and the respective fleets would be displayed once the enemy faction had broken into the base. This would give a small chance for the defending faction to mobilise and defend their base (hence inspiring interaction). The boss once defeated would drop random PVP gear and the reward for this (be it daily or weekly) would be PVP currency.
The minor quests could be kill X amount of opposing faction NPC's or Sub Bosses located around the map, but again rewarded with PVP currency.
I believe a simple idea such as this would inspire people to actually want to go to Ilum and actively PVP there.
At the moment however Ilum is really a waste a time and does not interest me in the slightest.