Seems to me, the simple answer to a lot of these requests and the solution to a lot of division in the community is a difficulty setting. You want a challenge, set your difficulty up, take more damage, deal less; challenge yourself to the max. For those of us that don't want it set it down, take less damage, deal more. To balance it out, rolls for loot would favor higher difficulty settings first. No freebies for the carried, but no lockout from a large part of the game for the uncoordinated either. win/win.