With my last post, I took a shot at Turbine for including a silly time sink in the form of mass kill deeds without really providing a good solution to the problem. Here is one possible solution.
Hard mode.
Make a server labeled ‘hard mode’ (or some far more clever PR term, like extreme mode, or die hard mode, or… well you get the point). It’s the same world, same quest, same everything, but turn the mob difficulty up, say, 10%. Give them 10% more hp, make them hit 10% harder, etc. Maybe make xp gain 10% slower, raise repair costs 10%, and auction house fees up 10%. You get the idea.
Hype the fact that if you want world first kills or feats, do it on this server to make it REALLY count. That should draw the hardcore players and guilds away from your normal servers, lengthen the current content you have in the game for the players who generally rush through it faster than everyone else, and above all, raise the difficult for that group without affecting the rest of your player base. Now you can stop releasing content that is initially tuned way too hard and later nerfed down. (Looking at you Blizzard) Plus this gives you a free pass on people complaining about an encounter being too difficult, at least on that server. Hey, its hard mode, that’s the idea, right? The top guilds will find a way to beat it anyway, and once they do, the other top guilds will follow suit. And nothing drives hype for an encounter than a top guild struggling but making progress.
Would it work? Would the hardcore buy into it? Post a comment and let me know.
Hardcore Casual 
then again you would become accustomed to it being, in effect, 10% harder.
new comers would join the “hardcore” server and know no different, the casuals would be ridiculed “cuz they play the n00b version of the game”
but it would be fun for a player how isnt new to the game
Almost sounds like UO’s Siege Perilous
Just have players not wear a chest piece to show how hardcore they are and destroy some of their gold when they put an item on the auction.
Well it wouldbe up to the designers to keep the game balanced without that 10% difficulty increase, which I think would be fairly easy to do.
Keep in mind, even after Blizzard make Molten Core a joke compared to its original version, most WoW players still have not seen Rag. There is a wide spectrum of players, and a game should be tuned so that a majority of your player base can experience the content.