Borderlands (1 and/or 2) Co-OpFollow

So I picked up the Borderlands GOTY edition a while back and finally got around to activating it on Steam. I had fun for a little while, but then I went to see if I could get in on a co-op game. 4 games total available, none of which were remotely in my level range. That's cool, it's been out quite a while, most people have migrated to BL2, right? So I picked up BL2, activated it, played through the tutorial and up to around level 8ish, and went to Matchmaking. No games found. No games found last night; no games found this morning before work. Finally, this afternoon, I found an open game, and it was just some guy AFK. I'm had my games open to the public, and nobody seems to join.

Is it because of the loot system, where anyone can grab loot (instead of it being individual loot), that keeps people from playing public games? I assume that many people play with friends and whatnot, but I was a bit disheartened by the lack of low-level games. Perhaps when I get higher level, people will be playing public?

I've got BL1, so if I see you on sometime, maybe I'll hit you up. Kastigir on Steam.