Sorta, as was pointed out in the other thread, a low ranking player can make more sp an hour solo or duoing than if they were to party with a rank 50 powerlevel.
The point is allowing players to play with who they wish to play with without being penalized for it. While this is indirectly linked to the "difficulty" of leveling up, that connection is not the intended focus here. It's true that removing, lessening, or altering the penalties for playing with higher ranked players could be abused by players who choose to do so, but any system can be abused, so that is hardly a reason to refrain from improving upon what is inherently flawed. As far as there being a lack of content for rank 50 players, I believe this is going to be addressed soon, and will continue to be addressed as time moves forward, so unless the restructuring of the development team and future patches don't do what they are meant to do, then the point is relatively moot, as any further changes to the SP gain systems would likely come either with or after the addition of endgame content. And as far as the game being "candy-ass mode"... What does it matter? Most people play games as a leisurely activity, for personal enjoyment; how fast or slowly another player levels shouldn't heavily effect the enjoyment of any other given player, as it only indirectly effects them by means of another retainer in the Wards. I'm what might be considered a "hardcore" player by MMO standards, but I'm personally not bothered by John Doe being able to level a little faster because Jane Smith and the rest of the Anonymous Corpses LS was able to lower their ranks to assist him with his guildleves, because at the end of the day what some other player is doing with their time isn't going to hurt what I'm doing with my time, unless they are exploiting the economy in some way (but such things could be done just as easily on a rank 1 character with the right preparation).
In short, chillax bro, it won't kill you.
What is level syncing? never played 11 Oh wait o_o google going to post this anyway to get my post count up
Haha level sync. Sure might be efficient way to level up but most players' knowledge of their classes will be stuck in R20-R30.
I'm not trying to minimize your concern -- and in fact I think level linking would be fine -- but as long as new characters are free, you can always start an alt. And leveling to 23 is really fast now. Just a thought.
Regardless, please tell your friends "welcome to the game!" for all of us.