Were those new changes already implemented, for the most part?
Decided to play a little with mage and see a zone I hadn't been to before, so last night ran a level 10 mage plus a healer up to Blacktide Bay. Spent most of the time with yellow con ratmen where a double pull was difficult to impossible, depending on the ratmen classes. The XP rate also felt slower; while I wasn't really taking note of the time in relation to how much XP I started with, it seemed like it was somewhere around 2 - 3 hours for a level at level 10.
Thing would have probably got substantially easier with the level 12 pet, but by the time I hit 12 I was ready to quit... but not before I decided to invis and exsplore other parts of the zone. Which means I died, lost 12, and had to spend time running my druid over there to do the recovery...