Originally Posted by Zifna

Implementing soft caps with better drawbacks might be a less time-consuming method of doing a similar thing.

For example, you can enter a dungeon (the very same dungeon!) on Raid mode when it's released. When the next dungeon is unlocked, Assault mode becomes active for that raid. If you enter an instance on Assault instead of Raid, you can enter with up to 40 players (or up to 20 for 10 mans, up to 10 for 5 mans).

At the same time, you make much more gear (especially flashy gear) available through quests. Most quests cannot be completed on Assault mode, and non-progression oriented trash drops are less frequent (i.e. same amount of HoD, less gems and trash epics, no Badge of Justices off of bosses).

If you only unlocked Assault mode for Black Temple when Sunwell came out, it would largely negate the idea that people would learn fights the "wrong way" and there's a strong incentive for an Assault raid to improve to the point where they can "Raid" an instance--they'll get tons of loot from all the quests they could never do! Additionally, it will help all the more "friendly" guilds who want to keep a stable raidforce on but hate having people sit out. Many people won't care if they can't get the quested Phoenix mount if it means that they can bring all six of their IRL friends who play mages.