I played both games a while ago. I remember the AoE-RoR has more civs and is more playable. I could be wrong. That is a long time ago. Both are old anyway.

Because people have no taste
no idea

Sad but true.

Because AOE trial was distributed better than ROR and people don't bother to know about the expansion in the old times when I was a kid I played AOE trial campaigns and my brother bought AOE the but we never care about ROR because it was more expensive. People know more the existence of AOE than ROR even though the many distros of AOE trial in many different disks. The time AOE got popular better than ROR in my opinion, I never played at zone. Not everyone will play online some more will play offline. It is like if you are a kid you don't have money to buy ROR unlike when you are an adult you can purchase it real quick so people would rather play AOE trial or ROR trial if they dig and care to play it mostly people knows aoe for campaign not many know about the competition online.