How about we change the "dps check" a little?

[HumanNinjaToo]

Tell me what games require near mechanical perfection before allowing you to continue.

Dark Souls comes to mind... You can't summon in other players if you don't play online. Over leveling doesn't work on all the bosses.

Now tell me which games have easy modes to allow casual players to progress.

Almost every new game these days has some iteration of story mode, normal mode, and hard mode.

However, while I don't agree with participation rewards, I do agree that locking people out of content based on their skill is not cool. But again, I don't think you should get a reward for barely scraping by. Rewards should be given when you've done something well, when you've accomplished an exceptional feat.