I tried Badrams Meddle on purpose with only so much gear to get in aka i cheesed the ilvl (or "the naked trail for healers" keep me alive for a spot in the static llul<- this is a joke). I did this with friends and they did know what i was doing. And i can tell you the mobs shred you hard, i had almost less hp then our healer and got hit by everything like a truck... on a cargo ship! As we progessed through this "fun little experiment" i could never pull more then 1 group and even said group spanked me hard. As is geared my tank normal min ilvl and a little bit above ....: Oh wonder i didnt die in seconds. The mobs are hitting hard on min ilvl but not enough for the "i was dead in 3 seconds and could not press any buttons" phenomenon the OP discribes.