Server uniqueness is just a part of the secret. Take Awesome Stuntages for example, I went there only a few times to see that you can get bored in there during the first 10 minutes, but yet there were more than 300 players constantly playing. I don't intend to be insulting towards RoBo or anyone, but apparently uniqueness isn't the only thing attracting new players.
Of course players like the eye-candy features like fancy textdraws and awesome communities that stick together, but the first thing people usually look at is the player count. If that is around 100 at the moment, it looks quite attractive and they'll join. I have witnessed my own server going from 130 players to 270 in a bit more or less than 30 minutes.
So we're not talking stunt servers here, I get it, and terms for a great RP server are a little different. There it is most definitely the community and the "climate" in general. A properly working business and house system of course are a great plus to everything. I remember playing on Argonath RPG 3 or 4 years ago, when it was still running heavily modified PEN1:LS scripts and although compared to modern creations it was nothing, the experience was still very enjoyable. But their community originated from somewhere else where their server was also the best one on the scene (MTA:VC), so I cannot give any tips on how to raise popularity for your server from ground up. I just have to mention that there are great coders out there who sometimes are having a hard time making stuff easy to use for players. I even find myself struggling with that from time to time, how to lay out something that is complex in code, simply for the user.
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On-topic: in SA-MP, almost everything has been done. There aren't much gamemodes like competitions, for example football and basketball competitions.
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A separate gamemode for football/basketball would be disastrous: takes a shitload of time to create, players who read about your innovation join, play for 5-10 minutes, leave and never come back. It is a waste.
Implementing something like football or basketball competitions, if done properly, is very much complex calculations and code ran not just once or twice per second. I doubt writing it into a proper roleplay gamemode would have its upsides.
