With a lot of tanking being damage-based these days, we're screwed without CDC even if cures are are normal or debuffs were as they used to be. Good luck convincing DDs to /THF to TA on you, too.

Personally, tanking for an alliance was never a role I was particularly interested in as it meant yet another gear set and of course fighting with PLDs and NINs for the spot back in the day. I don't really miss the days of "Gimme a little bit of time to build hate" either, and have plenty of horror stories seeing rival shells take forever and a day to kill crap with RDM tanks. To me, not being able to tank HNMs is like not having Cure V, you might be able to manage under the proper conditions, but it shouldn't be expected. Still wanna tank EXP or the odd quest/mission fight? Go for it. Like it or not, the whole "No Effect" side of enmity gain was pretty much an exploit, though.