We try our best to provide the least lag possible and are constantly improving. Lag comes from many different variables. I may be biased but I think we do a better job than other large servers
Yesterday, I was slaughtered by a magma cube on 5. It was lagged, and I kept hitting it, but it wasn't registering the damage, even though it was registering plenty of damage on me. So yah, it happens. I lost a ton of glowstone and a new suit of armor along with some extended fire resistance potions and about 12 levels. Sometimes you just gotta walk away...shake it off and start again
Just think of it like any other game. Lag can come from a large list of things and sometimes is unavoidable and nobody's fault in general. Because of that, it's not one of those things we can pin point to situations and claim, YES, that happened because "x" happened on this end. I can't count the number of times I felt I was killed due to lag in COD, but if I wrote Activision and demanded I get my kills/deaths fixed, they'd probably laugh at me, haha.
most of the lag i've experienced, i narrowed it down to my computer. for some reason, every now and then my computers network card (i tried resetting my modem, my router everything) get's really laggy and rebooting fixes it for me. lag is such a broad imprecise term, and can be caused by any number of sources, from your own computer your own network, your isp's network, emc can only control their end of the line. i know it's incredibly frustrating to die by lag, but it's the nature of internet games, and you just have to live with it. think of it like an act of god.
Death by lava, oh how I wish this demonic stuff stayed in Diablo and didn't screw over other games like Minecraft... Though, once it's in lava, chances are, it's gone. EVeryone, including my young brother, and even the Prince of Persia, have lost their stuff to this menace. The best way to counter lava is to bring water buckets, which is a must for adventuring far.