I want to give the benefit of the doubt and I know there can be differences with DCs but those numbers just seem off. I'm not sure we're getting the whole story. I know anecdotal evidence is just that, but I've run WoD hundreds of times over the years and can only remember a handful where we just couldn't make it. I've run it a lot recently since I've been working on animas so I was doing Gift of the Archmagus constantly. I know at least on my DC, my experience hasn't been anywhere near what you're describing.

And any lessening of the penalty for leaving will just make it harder for new people to get through that for MSQ. I can't support anything that will do that.