Even with better gear or echo, A3S and A4S will be major headaches for people because of the mechanics involved. I think A1S and A2S can be done without much discussion (and even in DF groups, no issue) as long as everyone understands the fight and their individual role.

I don't think these fights should be nerfed because this is the 'one thing' that is meant to challenge the raiding community. That said, I think Thordan: Ex is a little bit more difficult than anyone anticipated. The DPS/healing/tank checks on this fight are pretty tight, assuming you don't have the best of the best gear. Also, the mechanics are really familiar for folks who know Coil, but not so much for people who didn't do Coil. So, the learning curve is really dependent on that. I enjoyed the difficulty of Thordan: Ex, but I could see them nerfing this fight to make it more accessible to the general playerbase.

I think what the OP said is exactly why SE is going to keep some stuff gated. They made an easier Alexander so that people could still see/enjoy the story without having to deal with the headache of raiding. This was a huge complaint regarding Coil -- a storyline so central to the transition between 1.0 and 2.0, yet few people were able to do it without serious help (if they didn't have time/care to raid).

I think a mistake was making Alexander easy TOO easy. It was so easy that you could basically ignore (most) mechanics and be okay. There were just a few gimmicks you absolutely could not ignore. I think the general public could have dealt with a more difficult 'easy' raid... even Void Ark seemed more challenging than the easy mode of Alex.

For the future... I anticipate the easy mode of the next level of Alex to be a bit more challenging. This will get the general playerbase more interested, and they won't be able to clear it within a week and then just grind it out until they don't care about the gear anymore (which is basically outdated compared to Eso/VA gear).