15? Expanded to 80-100? A lot of people added to the '15'..!
Perception wise. I remember being frustrated many times during my 8 year+ tenure on Coh the glacial pace of Coh itself almost seemed to stall before NC Soft bought it from Cryptic. I don't think secretly working on Champions ('Coh 2') and CoV helped the main game of Coh at all. Nor Going Rogue which just repeated the same mistake of CoV for me. It compounded it. Evidences by a very linear progression to L20 and some poorly tested maps. (I did enjoy it to a degree...but my duo partner got fed up of it real quick...and I guess he wasn't the only one...)
Eventually Paragon got into their stride and in the last year or so development was picking up a pace. But for me? From the moment NC Soft bought Coh the scramble should have been on to update the actual engine of Coh (while keeping the mechanics...) graphics to give it a more modern feel. They had 4-5 years? We got Going Rogue and 'Mushroom/fungus/Plant' power set and the beta flavoured 'Beam' set which sucked instead. (Sure, we got 'lots' of other stuff...but not the 'stuff' that was going to 'save' it.)
Given the size of that team I would have expected more. Much more. I always got the feeling feeling that Paragon were 'tight' with progress. e.g. Stamina standard? Should have happened years sooner than it did? Speed up the 'slow' game play (I never felt it was...but some did!) with Hasten as the 'fifth' power in the Stamina set. Create more tertiary power sets. (There were loads of 'bonus' powers in the game like Sands of Mu etc which could have been cobbled into tertiary sets which had sat, cob webbed since the game launched...) Defenders with poor solo ability. By the time I discovered Dominators I didn't care about Defenders any more. PVP? Not important to me...but I never heard the last of it being 'broken.' Free to play? As a VIP I didn't care. But for to get the F2P crowd in? Too many restrictions. It seemed to take ages to actually develop new power sets to add to and spruce up the combat with something new.
Paragon did some great work. The ITF being a sound example. But it was tempered by a ridiculous fractured Incarnated system which bore no resemblance to the original interface. Far too confusing...and the lofty and unreal Legion super TFs to get random rewards and generic looking powers through an archaic interface which seemed ashamed of the standard interface. Meh.
75-85 extra employees and that's all you've got? I probably sound harsh. But I think if we're all honest there were things about Coh that we loved and hated. Or got bored with. For me, PStudios got into their stride too little too late. (And seemed to noodle about with the 'little' things, nickel and diming the player over issues instead of addressing them, while the city of Rome was burning subscribers...)
For me? I just liked the game pre: issue 4. I'd still take that now. 500 mb patch vs a 4.5 gig client? Surely one would be 'easier' to reverse engineer the server than the patch 24 beta? But then I'm no Coder. That's for sure.
http://evilasahobby.com/2013/03/17/city-of-heroes-villains-putting-claims-to-the-test/It's probably being discussed or has been elsewhere but an interesting read.
...and another link on the enormity of the task to rebirth Coh in any form (in the author's view...)
http://evilasahobby.com/2013/10/08/city-of-titans-i-disbelieve-the-illusion/I think any spiritual successors have it 'all on' to recreate the magic and feel of Coh. But nothing's impossible and I wish them the very best.
Some talented and clever people out there evidenced by 'gift' of Icon.

Another interesting link...
http://evilasahobby.com/2012/11/26/city-of-heroes-villains-top-5-under-realised-systems/...and on it's closure...
http://evilasahobby.com/2013/09/17/city-of-heroes-villains-an-addendum-of-sorts/On Coh 2...?
http://evilasahobby.com/2012/09/14/city-of-heroes-villains-there-was-no-cohv-2-0-because/On that engine...
http://evilasahobby.com/2012/09/02/that-cryptics-licensing-of-its-engine-is-shutting-down-cohv-rumour/http://evilasahobby.com/2012/09/08/city-of-heroes-villains-cryptic-isnt-stopping-cohv-from-continuing-a-lore-bible/The End of the World...(a look at the 'numbers'...)
http://evilasahobby.com/2012/09/01/city-of-heroes-villains-an-end-of-the-world-event/More on that Coh2 'Battalion' game morphing into some 'Dark Heroes' realism...
http://evilasahobby.com/2012/10/05/city-of-heroes-villains/...ironic words in the following link from NC's P.R...
http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/04/06/ncsoft-trademarks-city-of-heroes-2/Food for thought.
I do rather miss City of Heroes.
Azrael.
PS. Memories...(of Coh's development...)
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/10/26/the-making-of-city-of-heroes/