Just to add something:

I made my first 8/8 EXP party the other day. I went PLD with 2 other GLAs. Despite the tankiness, we were still rockin' pretty hard. Very little downtime with good exp (about 45k an hour I think, vs level 40 ants).

No WARs were present in the making of this party. Everyone played what they wanted, and we all had a blast.