You've mentioned playability in terms of Chessmaster's Tower and Tarus' bracers. I can easily play 5 characters at 400 hours a pop and never come up with a reason to enter Chessmaster's Tower. Anything worth getting there has probably already been gotten and the ranking there sucks so bad for goods that I'd rather fight angnos at 1 exp a pop.

As far as the bracers are concerned there are plenty of better alternatives. The only place I can see it being a problem is the Elven Vaults. To solve that problem I'd like to see paladins get the calm supplication. Beyond that I can easily see a paladin still going into the vaults and just roleplaying extreme remorse the whole time.

You'll have to come up with a better argument that playability is adversely affected.