As it stands now, potential new roleplayers have no way of knowing where the RP crowd is. If they can't find roleplay forums telling them what the RP servers were, then it's pure luck what they pick in the server list and whether they happen to pick the RP server(s) depending on if they're EU or NA.
We don't just roleplay in small groups of friends, Bioware, we have server roleplaying communities. If people can't find those communities, chances are they may just give up on roleplaying altogether. We have to stick together and that's going to be really difficult if new players don't know where they're going.
Custom chat channels aren't an acceptable "solution". If server designations are gone forever, RP instances are the minimum we'd need to help people actually find roleplay - at least then a new player can change instances and stand a chance of other RPers being there.