good old times never come back, and good new times can come, but only if work is done for it.

in this particular case it means continuous engine development to be up-to-date in competition, and have a good marketing alongside, to attract new users, and keep the existing ones. it would also require nice online content and easily available demos, videos, tutorials, and links to games released created by the given engine.

I think 3DGS is concentrating mainly on beginners and hobbyists who requires simple but complete tool-set and lower system requirements. and it's really good as a starting engine in 3D game creation. those who have some 3D art or C#/C++ programming knowledge, have better options.

and also the licence price and conditions are also important, but when you can download e.g. a cracked Unity Pro easily, probably a lot of people decide to use that because they know that they will never release a completed game (or they buy one licence when project is ready after some years to legalize the work). or use e.g. Esenthel where full functionality is available, you have to pay only when releasing a commercial project. or UDK. probably much better examples can be written...