The skill was an unnecessary annoyance in terms of time regearing.

Ahtieli was the sort of player who was very shrewd in managing his risk in PK (he survived Lich constitution for a very long time) and probably sacced as a means of dissuading the use of the tactic.

The distinction is between letting someone dent with no consequences aside from their death, or letting them dent you knowing that if they die they are going to need to replace their equipment entirely.

Given Ahtieli's skill level, general game knowledge, plus leader powers, plus a number of competent allies there was a pretty strong chance that anyone going toe to toe with him was going to wind up dead, or running.

But honestly this is way off topic, aside from you proving the point that implementing a change would probably lead to more unnecessary full saccing behavior.