Planetside Now?

I followed this game for years before release and watched it change ideas then it came out.  Played it for a while maxing a couple characters but was really dissapointed in the weapons being so inaccurate and weak.  Your team would run in front of you getting right ontop of the enemy to hit them causing negative paoints for team damage.  I was expecting accurate weapons to take advantage of the large maps.  Hoping to be able to snipe from distance and the firefights again would have considerable distance between them rather than a gang of players having to get so close to the enemy to hit them it was more like a melee fight then futuristic warfare.  My question is.  How is it playing now a days?   Can attacks be made accurately from a distance?  Are the weapons as accurate as say, FPS games like Battlefield series and otther muliplayer ranged weapons games?  Since Tabula Rasa folded its doors I was thinking of checking Planetside out again.  But figured I would ask what its like before installing, patching just to be disapointed again.  Also wondering what the server populations are like?   Reading though the posts on here it seems merges took place so hopefully that resultied in higher populations.  Thanks very much.