Nice points Shin and good break down to the point simplification to most of what I mentioned!
Yeah swarm kiting is a minor issue it's takes a lot of time and it's easy to counter in terms of design oops that mob summons oops that mob roots, stuns, mezzes, charms, fears, knocks back, blinds, snares, ect numerous ways to discourage that. I'd also add that some swarm kiting isn't a bad thing particularly if there are plenty of mobs to go around.
I've been gradually work on doubling PEQdb spawns actually so that could further aid to providing less spawn camp endangered species syndrome plus it could do so much more adding increased challenges and a more filled living breathing game world. I have Odus and Faydwer somewhat done. Still have Antonica to do which is about the size of those two combined.
What hasn't been done though is the X, Y, Z, and heading locations haven't been modified yet so they are simply stacked directly on top of the old spawns and haven't modified the names yet either which ideally I'd run through a name generator.
It's just a basis idea atm, but I envision potential to it to vary and differentiate things from a carbon copy of EQ classic that's been hashed over with little or much more minor changes. So much stuff could be done with it for depth stuff like guard shift duties for night and day bit like Kithicor and other stuff like mobs that path differently depending on game time by exchanging two spawns.
It's the subtle or brash added details that would make it different and interesting and newish feeling even though it would have a core nostalgia familiarity which I think a lot of us seek out of personal comfort.
Your experimental server system is exactly what I meant!
I think the itemization would be sorta difficult, but could be tackled gradually kind of like I'm going about this spawn population increase thing. Just doing it for a handful of common highly popular items could change and shake things up quite a bit "Short Sword of the Ykesha" or "Golden Efreeti Boots" for examples were highly popular pretty rampant EQ Classic items. You can also imagine being able to upgrade a "Fungus Covered Scale Tunic" that would be pretty popular and a way to help keep supply a bit lower as well by removing some from the economy itself in order to do so.