BTS has been in operation with exclusive assets like BitGold for over a year and many exchanges have failed in that time, including bter which did a lot of BTS volume, how 'fast, real fast' did the liquidity come? BTS still doesn't rank in the top 50 exchanges on volume.
The decentralized exchange which is the feature exclusive to Bitshares wasn't really availabel until Bitshares 2.0.. Yes you had Bitassets and stuff but you didn't have gateways. People required centralized exchanges because you didn't have gateways and other features plus the web wallet didn't look like this back then.
At this point as centralized exchanges get shut down or hacked the Bitshares web exchange network will keep gaining steam. I would say you're not going to attract users with lower fees. I've never chosen an exchange based on the fees. I choose exchanges based on whatever assets are on the exchange and for example in the case of MAID or Mastercoin you only had MasterXChange, you only have one exchange to choose from for certain assets so the way to bring people to your exchange is to offer Bitshares exchange exclusive assets.
We simply don't need to compete on fees. The technology is so superior to everything else and due to first mover advantage, the competition is on marketing not fees, and marketing is about exclusive profit making opportunities, not fees. Have the right assets which pay a nice dividend or ROI and you'll see whales on the exchange.
I think we'll get there very quick with 2.0 but we do need to listen to active traders and if possible fees for non filled trades should be less.
Listen to data, not propaganda, not politics. Data requires you to have some evidence. There is no evidence right now that the fees are too high. Give it a few months with the fees at current levels, gather evidence, and then find out how well the referral program is working.
But right now the main issue is UX and UI. UX and UI is the only thing missing for me, the fact that I cannot import my keys, or other little issues. But I do not think Bitshares 2.0 should market itself with "lowest fees of any exchange". The way to market it is an easy to use powerful exchange which has many Bitshares exclusive assets which you simply can't trade anywhere else.
It's like video game consoles. Those other consoles don't have the ability to create new assets within them, and cannot have exclusives. Cryptsy is just an exchange and nothing else while Bitshares is more than just an exchange. The fact is you can launch private assets, and there will sooner or later be profit opportunities where people can do loans, bonds, so they can get their 10% or 5% interest, and once that happens there will be nothing the centralized exchanges can do.
Focus on bringing exchanges in through unique, exclusive, Bitshares specific assets. Create assets which cannot be done on any other technology. If some other team wants to try to do it for cheaper, they wont be able to get the developers to do it, and a centralized exchange can't do it by design.