This is actually something I feared happening when I designed Nanorab. Part of his role then became that the reason he thought Balance was so awesome - was because variety was so critical to Thera's survival. He considered that having so many different people, all unique in some way, was beautiful. And that having one group of people grow too strong seriously inhibited the beauty of other groups.

This allowed me not only to convey a really cool hippy theory about Balance, but also dodge the old 'pick the weak off as a cheesy excuse'. The Cabal IS very vulnerable to this kind of behaviour - that much I agree with - and I can't see any way to easily weed it out other than players voluntarily not being asshats. And punishments or at least some kind of chiding from the Imms being thrown around to discourage it.

That said, Nexus plays quite a handy role that I think people are beginning to realise as they get used to having it around. They are a GREAT ranking tool, and at Hero level they really help in those situations where you know you have absolutely Zero chance of retrieval against something like 6-2 odds. But throw in just one Nexun and suddenly it's 6-3, and looking halfway possible with a well planned strike. When that happens, it's cool.

Yhorian.