My wife and I run everything on solo or as a duo. We are casual. We don't have all the equipment (we do have a ton of crystal cove stuff). I like the new system. It's easy for me as a casual player to have EDs in the same format as enhancements. If my power goes down, i suspect i won't notice much.
We love crystal cove but don't, as casual players with little great equipment, see much need for a huge power boost at lvl20. We have over 80 toons between us with far more crystal cove stuff than we will ever need. We run with lvl7 or 8 toons to get greenies and high level toons 4 levels above the quest just slaying everything fast without bothering with the kobolds to get the highest level gems. It's not like you can fail or anything - it's just easy simple fun.