GrandDragon was the lead man mate he's the one that pushed the merge, not sure if he would have still been in guild.
Like i said as soon as we left it seemed to me that everyone in or had been in WW followed to SD. Bar yourself, selaine, art3, plusho, rexan, pottsy? he may have quit. the full inner circle gang right there anyway :P.
Jeleh was welcome but i think he had quit along with DiZMeX.
GrandDragon was going onto the council yes (He was the one that suggested I be the other WW member on the council as I had a pretty good relationship with everyone in the SD leadership) and was the one to convince me to join in the end as I wasn't bothered about playing at the time.
I have no idea what part he played in regards to a full merger but I do know for sure that Rexan and Neo were the ones who hashed out details in regards to the other members that weren't in the guild at the time.
One of the first things that happened during that process was deciding who from SD who was to be removed and who was WW was to join - That certainly was both myself and GD that dealt with the WW side (Primarily) and put our thoughts in on the SD players.
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In regards to the me, art3mis etc not joining straight away
Myself - I got married 2 days prior so yea I had other things on my mind ^_^
Plusho for obvious reasons was never going to join
Pottsy would join whatever guild with Plusho (And I think had actually stopped at the time as you said)
Art3mis was on holiday.
Selaine really wasn't playing much either iirc and only played in SD for a short period afterwards.