Alliance battles

Are these being played anymore? I've went into them 5-6 times since GW2 was released and I haven't seen a single person in the queue area...

no they're not, the only place active in the same vein is the Jade Quarry, which is disappointing, except for the bot runners, of which there are rather a lot, but as you might have noticed, enforcing the EULA in GW1 isn't being even half heartedly done

bots
syncing
gold selling

all being reported, nothing being done

AB was pretty dead even before GW2. There was the large spike in players the days after the update + on AB weekends, you'd (probably) get into a game faster than a rated GvG. Was basically empty at all other times though.