IMHO Arguing about what defines Midcore vs Casual or Hardcore is kind of missing the issue here.

The big problem is there isn't really any kind of consistent step up group combat content to build a new player up into Extremes and beyond. Roulette dungeons, alliance and normal modes are a face roll with next to 0 personal responsibility. Flail about on the floor as much as you want, it won't matter outside of potentially making things slower.

Suddenly you hit Extremes where enrages are a thing, personal responsibility is a thing and the need to communicate.... is also a thing. All of these pressure points all land at once.

SE have done better here. In 2.0, dungeons taught you personal responsibility, they taught you about enrages and they taught the need to communicate but most importantly, they spread these lessons out across multiple bosses and dungeons.

IMHO Alliance raids should reward players for a basic level of contribution. It doesn't have to be orange logs for loot. Just enough of a nudge to let players know what is an acceptable standard of play and what isn't. This could be something like a potency per second ranking at the end of the instance to remove gear from the equation and the reward could be as little as a simple S-F style tier ranking or as much as getting drop token towards an armor piece perhaps with more being granted for better performances? I don't think the level of the reward matters, what's important is letting players know what the game is going to expect of them as they progress through the tiers of endgame content so they are better prepared as they step up to Extremes etc.