I do agree the squad system is broken. Knowing that most of the consistent, og, player base that is active on Manacube and want to slay with ease already know who to, and not to, target. That being said I don't think you can really control that with the administration and the foreseen player base depletion coming in the near future.
Here are some of my suggestions:
I think the prestige implementation is lit. (Idk if that was in last season) So since it is somewhat inevitable that these armies of prot3 diamond monsters are going to exist and have communication with each other to take out up and coming players. Maybe it would be lucrative to add another 3-9 tiers of kits you can purchase with mana. ;Similar to the Jugg, etc. These three kits already are quite underwhelming. You have to buy most of the the add ons, like fireaspect, soups, pots, pearls, to make them worth your while. Especially if you're trying to go on a streak or hold up against an army of fighter kit warriors targeting you. So what I suggest maybe is add many more unique tiers, even with diamond & enchants. Maybe keep the same price for the three tiers homogenous, but make three new unique ones available after every prestige. So you have something to grind for and unlock for prestiging. Right now we're all prettty much just grinding to get prot3 diamond and get smacked by 5 guys who've had it since day one.
This way if you add more tiers, you make use of prestiging. You'd be able to add more use of soups, pots, pearls, to gameplay with these kits.. You could buff the donor kits a little. Could add some death effects to the higher prestige kits. It just seems, that right now there isn't much to really like... grind for. I just kinda feel like Im playing just to play.. I think it should be more about individual grinding progression besides group play. If you only make diamond available to the highest prestiges. Don't allow item dropping.. So you cant beef up a squad. Do away with buyable books, diamond sets, and make prestiging the only way to obtain them. That way the server will have pretty much a set economy for auc. in the future.
I guess a lot of what I'm suggesting would take a lot of work to implement. But I just don't see this server being anymore newbie friendly or worth grinding for to stay active on, than the last seasons... Knowing damn well a fire sword boy and his buddies will come down to target you once you grind for your diamond just to take it away in the first five kills you had with it. And we know that the past seasons have never had a player base with consistent numbers.
I think this would be awesome. We know you cant do anything about teaming. You're either an active player or not. Just make it more about the grind rather than (ingame)money and teams. Could add lit killstreaks too, like knockback sticks, poison pots, invis pots...
I also think the killstreak bounties are stupid. You get a bounty when you go on a streak just so you can be targeted more. Doesn't make sense to me.