I'm not so sure I'd want to go back to the HNM days. I poopsocked in EQ1 for years as the top guild there and it quite frankly sucked for pretty much everyone else on the server as we got 95% of all raid targets. If you're at the top it's great, if you aren't it sucks ballz.

Don't get me wrong, DMZ is retarded and I hope it's just group content and not what's in store for actual raids. There are other ways to limit content so you get that feeling of accomplishment. People can throw in challenge all they want but honestly there is always a gimmick and strategy to every raid and once you have that down it's easy mode. The only way you could make it a challenge every time is to somehow randomize it, and that can bring in a whole new level of frustration for some (I wouldn't be against it but that's me).

EQ2 did something I enjoyed where you had instanced tiered raids, but also open world targets that dropped similar loot with an occasional unique drop. Those that chose to do both instance and open world competition could gear out their players that much faster. The open world targets even had hardmode versions you could spawn that dropped even better loot.

As much as I enjoyed the good old days the reality is there are too many options out there for people now to stick with one game. FFXI in its heyday had very little competition, hence why people stuck it out in the beginning even when it was so terrible. If you can't appeal to Joe Casual your game will be niche at best, and dead at worst.