I think it's important that people remember that difficulty is completely subjective. I'm a double legend and cleared the current savage tier really early, so is the normal content hard for me? Of course not. But I regularly see groups hardcore struggle in normal level content when I do mentor roulette. I've seen groups wipe 5 times in a row to some of the new story trials. (new story trial 2 especially) I still see groups wipe to P2+P3 normal A LOT in mentor roulette.

I think the current difficulty level in normal content is fine and should remain accessible to casual players. It's there for casual players and is punishing enough to where you can actually still wipe if everyone is new or less skilled. The harder content is there for players like me that are excited to die 8 million times in DSU. If you want to see how hard the content can actually be for a new or casual player, unlock mentor roulette and queue in as a job that doesn't have a rez.

Even when we do get normal content that's designed to be harder, people just avoid it anyways. Orbonne is my favorite 24 man this game has ever released and I never get to do it because everyone just ilevel cheeses alliance raids to get LOTA. And we're about to get to experience the glory and chaos of getting to do a new 24 man day 1, which is one of my favorite experiences to have in the game outside of savage/ultimate.