Making monsters where you can 10-20 at once without risk of death was always bad design in my opinion. The world requires danger to it, has been one of the biggest issues since 2.0 launched, all the mobs just rolled over and let you kill them if you were appropriate level. Honestly you should not be a walking god in a mmo, there should be things in the open world that if you are not careful can kill you even 1 on 1. It is what adds danger to the world.

I always thought it was a joke that me alone could easily kill 10-15 of the Empires fighters at once in Castrum in Mhordona and this is back in the Darklite days of 2.0. I feel the 1.0 mobs were proportional strength. Not the Lvl 70+ stuff obviously but the lvl 50ish mobs in the bstmen strongholds. You could kill them 1 on 1 ok. But if you linked or agroed 3-4 you were more then likely dead unless you got lucky.