I Currently work at a net cafe, of which there about 7 SWTOR players who i play with, and another 5 on top of those who we play frequently with on Teamspeak, of these 13 people (including me) 100% of us are quitting as soon as we lose our ping advantage.
It is too much of a reason to stay, to be on 39 ping, for the first time ever in an MMORPG. Never before have i been able to Backstab(Maul) when directly behind a target without it saying "please get behind your target" or "target is out of range" because 220-250 ping is a joke.
If you combine the Australian PVP/PVE/RP servers into 1, you will lose close to nobody, maybe 5% of the players who were on RP Servers, and if they are SO upset they can take a free transfer to American RP.
Out of 13 people, 13 said they'll quit. As far as i can see that 100% leave rate. What kind of results are you expecting if you don't keep 1 Australian server as first priority, and let who you claim need their 'play style' sacrifice 200+ ping to get it if it means that much.