A few points:

1) (This is the major one.) You've improved your own PK skills over this time, and now you notice bad tactics. When you're new at things, you don't notice that the conjurer is using magic missile over dispel, or wands, etc. You're just wondering how bash doesn't kill the mage in two rounds, and why the necromancer keeps using this Energy Drain spell when the damage obviously sucks.

2) As Angel of Death pointed out, we police permagroups and multi-charring a lot tougher than we used to. As one example, while Palan's player certainly knows what he's doing, he wouldn't have been as tough as he was without Yagar and/or Tamuera always covering his back. The reason you have memories of SMUG/Neosoft obliterating their ranges has a lot to do with the fact that they weren't playing on a level field.

3) Equipment doesn't necessarily mean a person is highly skilled. Especially in a large cabal like Scion, they might have just been standing nearby when someone who is skilled killed someone else who is skilled.

4) Lone powerhouses still exist. Go back over the Graveyard, and you'll see a number of characters who were tough as nails and largely fought solo.

5) Class balance is a lot tighter than it used to be. Nowadays, I feel very comfortable in saying that there is no dominant class. The playerbase certainly doesn't agree on one- you'll see posts claiming conjurers, invokers, assassins, necromancers, paladins, shifters, etc. are all ruling the roost. (These complaints tend to wax and wane regardless of an absence of changes to the class, as well...) The changes I'd personally like to see at hero are all pretty small in those regards. I'd also bet that if we tracked PKs at level 42+ for a while, the most deadly classes aren't the ones most often complained about.