Players connot join the party while you are engaged in combat

[Tezz_Xivectro]

I do like the definitive answer (well as definitive as we re going to get anyhow) that was given, so now you can either take it or leave it, the system is as it is.

Definite for existing content. It's subject to change for "Future content" if they think it needs it.

Abstractly, it just seems like SE is being lazy & unwilling to deal with some of their bad design problems since they're so busy working on content. They should have kept this to themselves or waited another month or 2.