From what I understand, they rushed the release a bit, so at first it was incredibly buggy, and as a result they ended up alienating a lot of their playerbase. I hear it's not too bad now, though, bug-wise.
Not sure if I would go for it though; it's been out awhile and mmorpgs have a tendency to age and decay. Like EQ for example - most everyone's done everything and been everywhere, so even if you are new to it, the fact that no one else is kind of spoils it.
Now granted, AO isn't nearly as old as EQ, but I'm sure some of said principles apply. Hard to say though, a game like EQ has a lot of other flaws to speak of that might work differently in a game like AO...who knows, I've never played AO.
You could always try it though - first months of mmorpgs are usually free, save the cost of buying the game itself...which usually plenty more than the cost of playing it for a month...so I guess that's a moot point.
Anyways, just my two cents.
