Honestly the main problem was the time failure before you could retry. Notice how every msq final boss since has a fall or arena kill (except tsuki I think) The cannons were mainly there to stun the boss for more uptime and get rid of the annoying adds (since aoe back then was hella expensive in cost)

Gating an expansion wasn't a bad thing for the playerbase since HW was designed to be harder. The problem was that it was group skill rather than individual player skill. Then again, this was also the time when groups didnt disband on the 1st wipe.

Boy did it feel satisfying clearing it pre nerf.