Box meta was just a symptom. Like you said, returning became way too fast (annakarl tabs, no time between hopping worlds, edgeville respawn/and or pvp world bank hopping, etc). I don't really blame Jagex for these changes since it benefits the game for the vast majority of players. It just happened to screw over a very small minority (those of us who did F2P wilderness fights).
Of course there were also other factors such as the disparity between the remaining clan's pulls, crash wars, and so on. But the above definitely put a lasting disadvantage in place for anything to really revive.