*nod* Tweaks have been made. Are they really enough, though? 8000 out of a few hundred thousand you need to get to hero isn't exactly huge on the grand scale. Exp for exploring is pretty nice, I agree. But that just causes people to go to areas for the sole reason of getting that bit of exp. Like ranking, without killing anything. :P
Rp is also a nice tweak and are a step in the direction of loosening the ranking gripe, but I don't think you can't count these as they aren't given out to everyone.