Yeah, since they took out the AI, games are harder than ever to start. Even though the AI was annoyingly stupid, it was still preferable to play a 2vs2 (one AI, one human each side) rather than sit there for 45 minutes HOPING there are enough people online to get a game going.
If you check opengames.asp at almost any given time, you'll notice that there are always 1 or more queued up on dark and typically no one on light. Supposedly, there are 363 on light this panth and 328 on dark. However, it seems like those light side players aren't playing all that much. A simple solution, that I'm going to try next panth, is to be on light side. I enjoy playing, so I'll gladly join the side with the fewest active players.