I don't really consider Siege a good example of the old days. You could go a long time without being PKed in the old days if you kept your eyes open and avoided very popular PK spots.
In the old days people were playing to play, and you typically had one PK char for a change of pase, but with Siege... everyone is on there for the purpose of PvP, so if you see another person that is not your friend more then likely you are going to fight (similar to being in fel on a normal shard)
The old days had its bad time, but the fact that you could turn around and kill someone that was being a jerk was very nice (a self policing system).