The difficulty of the savage raids makes them straight to the point, boss fights, so you don't have to go on a long journey back to the boss every day your group attempts them. Difficulty also being the reason it's kept down to 8 players since coordination in larger groups is harder and the big alliance raids with multiple sections are kept as the casual catch-up difficulty tier.

3.x series already stated as the time they are introducing new kinds of content, with exploration missions being the start of it. Randomised relevant loot; big areas to explore with FC; NM and HNM battles. Can't say they aren't trying.

I know a lot of people like myself who log on every day and are satisfied no matter how much time has passed since the last content update. We craft things, help each other leveling alts, do roulettes (not just expert), collect glamors, etc. The pvp queues on my data center can still be almost instant at times. It varies a lot.