Like in point 1 the regular maintenance of the game from Bestmengqin's blog

A more old (10plus years old) game that, despite continual updates & modifications throughout the years, is considered as an old-fashioned game and not "next thing" (like MOH & Counterstrike – still lots of 

OSRS Items players, but not regularly maintained except for servers online which are generally player responsibilities).

There is a large opinion among players that Runescape being "a kiddies/starter MMORPG". Like in point 1 the regular maintenance of the game and upgrades over time have proven this to be false. Many won't even bother to look at the game due to what they've heard/read.

Poor marketing positioning. Jagex/Insight Ventures still depend primarily on web-based advertisements and word of mouth. There are exceptions, such as the gamer award and occasionally, TV advertisements in a few countries. 

The game is brought to the notice of people who would otherwise not know. Other mainstream mentions of Runescape are in news articles that have a negative slant (there were some cases of scammers and pedophiles in the past), which can bring attention, but not the kind that is desired.

SORWT SOF is designed to help preserve cash flow in a community which is shrinking, with more players quitting the game and fewer players coming in every year. But it doesn't address the above issues. This is a minimum expense way to try fix a problem but has been causing more instead, im not a CFO & dont have access to Buy RuneScape Gold the books however the frequent tweaks suggest its not doing the job in the current state.