Tatooine is iconic and has that rough-scrabble quality that fits the newbie experience, imo. Eisley just screams Star Wars. I enjoy welcoming new players to the server, as I think most of us do. We find them pretty well in general chat. Is that channel active by default? Making sure that Gen chat and tells are active by default would be helpful, perhaps.
I think a lot of us (Star Wars fans and Star Wars Galaxies Veterans) have sentimental associations with Mos Eisley. I agree that the convenient location of the cantina and med center make it a great choice for a more narrow bottleneck.