Well, that's basically what I'm weighing.

I mean, part of the coolness to the area for me is its solo-explorable-to-a-point uniqueness, puzzles, etc.

But there's also a bunch of items in that area that I think are cool, mobs with really intricate/unique spells and progs I'd like to see people fight, a bunch of story I'd like people to be able to piece together, etc.

So it becomes, is the second list of stuff worth sacrificing the first list of stuff?

The other factor there is that it's not just 'to me'. Obviously as author / person who has to do all the work, I get veto power over what everyone wants, but it doesn't do me a lot of good to make the area into something people aren't interested in.

I'm surprised at how many people are saying that they wouldn't really be interested in a highly aggressive throwdown style Tower vs. the classic style, and it makes me glad I asked.