I think they're panicking for sure.
I do expect crowds to pick up - the passholder deal is pretty killer (and available to blocked APs, which is a big pool), and the simple fact that people are discussing the LACK of crowds will bring in crowds. That's how it goes. I also think that the end of August-Christmas is going to be pretty consistently nuts - the fact that D23 crowds coincide with APs getting back in seems like a nightmare to me, and I think a lot of people put off their trips "until the crowds die down," but now that will bring crowds throughout the end of the year. ROTR is a big wild card, though, so who knows?
But, overall, the "opening of SWGE madness" was quite the opposite. The perception of high crowds continues to be the most effective way of predicting low crowds (and vice versa), much more than I even realized... other than the week or two after Christmas, it's gotten more and more pronounced that "anticipated high crowds" and "anticipated low crowds" very often swap entirely at DL.