There was a neat concept in a MUD I played a few years ago. (Text based game...which sadly other then graphics seems to be light years ahead in being able to provide quests etc.)
It was called reset. In AO it would work like this. When a dungeon respawns, it resets. All players are zoned back outside of the dungeon. You now get to all fight your way back in. Because you know that there will be more then 'one team' attempting to re raid these dungeons, increase the spawn and difficulty. (Mobs along the way.) At the same time, increase the amount of 'dungeons'...or anything that has a mob with a unique item on it by a hundredfold. If there were 80 Tars in this game with varying types of eq with resetting dungeons all in 25% suppression, with a random chance of item load...it might be a little more interesting. The MUD I played had 500 people playing back then. There were probably at least 30-40 zones or 'dungeons' that were worth attempting to get the eq from. Even then it was hard to get what you needed. In a game like this where there are a heck of a lot more players then 500, with a heck of a lot less then 30-40 dungeons, can you wonder why people cry out against dungeons and camping and cry out in despair over ever getting their hands on any of that eq? Pump out so many dungeons that can even *gasp* carry eq with similar stats but different names/appearances that there won't be a huge line at any of them. When the lines start getting long again, bam. Pump out some more. A short line isn't bad. It simulates competition. The ability to pvp each other in all these dungeons will however keep the concept of competition going. It is after all, PVP that many players eventually turn to because there is a lack of anything else to hold their interest. It's conflict that drives most players. But not in this inverted buthole way that you at Funcom have developed. Oh, people are still driven. They do want those items. But there's not much sense of fun in it. It's mostly anger and frustration and a feeling of helplessness knowing that there are thousands of players who need that 'item'.
Now the problem I see is that Funcom must be very short in man power. I'll hold to that because the alternative would be that they were lazy and didn't give a damn about making the game fun. (While maybe the truth, I will try to give them the benifit of the doubt.)