The issue here would be not letting the lifers burn through the content and open everything fast, IMO
Depends on what your interpretation of "fast" is. Without twinked weaponry, theres no way your going to get through late Kunark (or any expansion thereafter) without significant farming and letting the non-lifers catch up, in at least a experienced-content sense. Obviously knowledge of where the min-max weapons drop will speed things up a tad.
I really don't see how they're going to handle POP though. Without guild cooperation, I don't see enough hardcore people lasting long enough to field 72+ raids to take down Coirnav and the Rathe.
I'm on the other side of the fence on the progression. I think it's going to be too slow to keep people entertained enough to stick it out. Do you *really* want to farm the ghoul lord to get everyone ykesha's to go kill nagafen?
*edit* I think they have 3 routes they could go.
1 - Drastically up the spawn rate on nameds. I had an idea that for a named placeholder, it should automatically respawn on its regular spawn cycle till the named comes up, and then the named remains, so that if you're camping it, you have to go through placeholders. But FFS, the first time anyone ever goes through a dungeon, ALL the nameds should be up no?
2 - Put fableds in from day 1. Would bolster the quality of gear coming in from the get go and provide mini-raid type targets as you level.
3 - GM events on a regular basis to drop some decent items that are a bit "above the rim" to kickstart progression.