Lately it takes me 3-5 tries (at least) to get the items to appear when I open up the guild bank. This is a very old problem, should I assume at this point that it is unfixable and will be permanently like this?
For the most part my banking operations have been smooth, but I am still seeing the delay from time to time.
My personal bank opens right away, but the guild bank is very finicky at the moment. Like you said, I'm sure it's just server lag, but it shouldn't get eternally stuck in the "Retrieving Items..." phase. It is a similar problem to the dreaded infinite loading screens.
I have had some lag on the personal bank lately. Guild Stores with searches too.
However the Retrieving Items issue is something I have seen for quite a while now. If I go to another bank, the issue does not follow me. It also does not seem to matter how many people are talking to the banker either. Sometimes just a few and the delay is there, sometimes there is a mass crowd around the banker and I get immediate results.
If it takes more than 20 seconds, I go to another bank.
Enjoy the game, life is what you really want to be worried about.
PakKat "Everything was going well, until I died"
Gary Gravestink "I am glad you died, I needed the help"
Don't expect this to be fixed ever. It's been an issue since beta and they refuse to even comment on it which leads me to believe it's not fixable in the megaserver infrastructure. Same goes for the guild bank auto-stacking feature they turned off at release. Apparently, the dupe bug that was the reason for them turning off auto-stacking is not fixable because we have not heard another word about that since release, either. I guess it's just swept under the rug and considered to be "normal" now. With the change to B2P the likelihood of this being fixed more than a year later is probably nil.