I mean, my run had plenty of people die. So clearly the mechanics can kill people. "barely any damage" isn't accurate unless you have a SCH/SGE constantly shielding you or a party actually using mitigation. As far as I can tell, the encounters DO "some" damage. The only exception is Tanks, but that's true of all content in the game that aren't OHKO stuff.
And you're complaining that mechanics gave people too much time? How long is the "correct" amount of time to allow people to react to mechanics?
~2-5 seconds is Savage. Generally 5-10 is Extremes (less than 5s are Savage level Extremes that shouldn't be Extreme fights in the first place). So for casual, non-Extreme content, how long should people be allowed?
I agree that there needs to be some difficulty between casual and Extremes, but base 24 mans are casual, not that mid-level. As a rule, anyway. Not to mention this is the last patch, so there is only so much outgearing.
As for "What other game": Literally every other game with gear that has ilevels sees content get easier as you get higher level gear. That's part of the point of getting higher level gear. Having instances that slay people left and right but that people are forcing themselves to do for the rewards (sub-par gear and one upgrade token per week) isn't going to incentivize people to get better. They're still going to be bad, just now YOU have to drag them through every encounter and encounters take 2-3x as long to the point you'll shift to only doing premades. We had this same discussion in the thread about making dungeons harder.
Stuff that people are going to grind a lot can't really be super hard because what happens is the good players will get tired of carrying people and start doing only premades, then the content is too easy for them, meanwhile, the people not doing that won't be able to clear, and will demand nerfs or leave the game. Then nerfs will happen, probably after some have quit, then the people doing the premades are even more upset because things are TOO easy for them in their premades, and they quit. It's a system that is self-reinforcing to get worse and worse.
Yes, we desperately need a medium difficulty. The BASE difficulty of 24 mans isn't the place for it, though.
EDIT:
Exactly.
I don't know what groups these people are in, but my groups had people dropping like flies. We lost a complete party at one point, and it took two other parties trying to get them back on their feet while dodging mechanics to recover.