General

Ah yes the aggro would of course be manageable in a big team but progress would not be fast (in my head anyway). My issue with the current q250 zones is that they are riddled with safe paths and once you know these paths the areas do not present much of a challenge.

Not as thick as a nest per-say but yes more like Loria's worst spots. If the dev team had to go either way I would rather they made it harder rather than easier.

Ohhoo yes Almati's secret lab! That would be a great possible roleplay line for it! To tie in nicely for this the portal would have to be discovered in Almati to this new region:

"A secret laboratory situated in mysterious caverns buried under the trees' roots."

This could fit in with the introduction of the NPC boss. For example (and this is only an example) I had an idea in my post about Mezix that she would take up temporary residence to rebuild her stock of gingos. As we already know Mezix has huge gingos most likely obtained through selective breeding or experiments. She could perhaps be searching for Almati's lab (or even have found it) and be trying to manipulate his alchemy equipment into enhancing her gingos to be faster, stronger and bigger.