A few things...
I disagree with you when you say Empyreans were worst handled race addition to AC1. I think that title belongs to the Gear Knights. I cannot get over my hatred for Gear Knights. The way they were introduced to the game was so abrupt and I think they're quite ridiculous. Ridiculous for a game like Asheron's Call. They remind me of Transformers. Why would the developers bring Transformers to Asheron's Call? Good question. Did Gear Knights originate from AC2? I have no clue. Either way, they could have done without Gear Knights. Just my two pyreal. It also bugs me that they use Gear Knights frequently (NPCs, mobs, ect). For such a 'special race', they sure do reproduce faster than rabbits! Its over-saturating to the max! Same goes for Empyrean. I think they outnumber the Isparians these days.
And you bring up a GREAT point about Nuhmudira; where the heck is she? Shouldn't she be scathing-mad about the return of the Empyrean? You'd think so! And as far as we know, shes been MIA for quite some time. Maybe dead. A dead leader of the Radiant Blood, which is another 'dead' story.
I think the developers have been doing a great job with the lore! A great job with keeping their customers uninterested and detached from the story. I would bet that 99% of the current players don't even bother keeping up with the current story line because why should they? The unexplainable happens almost every month. Kid 17:04, 10 September 2012 (EST)
Gear Knights were from AC2. They were first seen in some of the original concept art and also appeared in-game. I agree, the introduction of the GK as a playable race was abrupt, but at least they didn't have a backstory yet, so there wasn't anything to screw up. The Empyreans, on the other hand, have 30,000+ years of backstory and the Yalaini being gone had been a major point in the lore. Think of how many quests are based around some Empyrean relic we hardly understand, or how many quests make absolutely no sense if undertaken by an Empyrean. The dev team is small, and understandably couldn't tweak every piece of content to make it work for Empyreans, but as far as I'm aware they didn't even attempt to do anything.
--An Adventurer 14:42, 18 September 2012 (EST)