I wonder why the Development Team is re-inventing the wheel?

Hamlets already exist. The geographic locations of each are nearly perfect for staging defensive battles. Each one only has one or two entrances. Implementation-wise they can create the hamlets as separate zones with separate server hardware, like they did for some of the low-rank camps. That will reduce whatever lag that may be caused by the battles.

I guess they could make "new" settlements that do all of that. But hamlets should be there for something! Please!! We as players desperately want hamlets involved in our day-to-day adventuring. They're kind of cool. We actually like visiting them, but we have no reason to right now.

Hamlet Defense was going to be that reason. If SE is not going to use the hamlets for that, we would appreciate knowing what these hamlets ARE going to be used for.