I think the best direction is designing a game where you CC first, then engage. Give more classes pre-combat CC tools. Your enchanter can mez a mob, sure. But your rogue can lock one down pre-pull. Your wizards has a magic cage or whatever on long cooldown or that's out of combat only. Your shaman can root. Etc. Make many/most of the pre-combat abilities. You then have combat designed where you come to a group of mobs, plan an attack, pick targets, synchronize your watches, execute cc (including which mob the tank will grab), and now you've got to kill them in order, deal with any early breaks, and are on the clock to kill them before they're all free from mez.
There were plenty of situations in Vanguard that went down like this, and it wasn't dumbed down or too easy. It took far more coordination since more players were involved than simply huddling together waiting for the monk to bring a single mob. Which was the not-the-greatest-mechanic in EQ. When your tank pulled 4 mobs and your enchanter had to scrabble to CC them, it was fine. When someone was trying to lull knowing it had a chance to resist and bring multiple mobs, things were fine. The only type of pulling I think that needs eliminated is the kind where you bring a single mob, then scamper off to bring another, because that makes it too easy for a group to just stand there camping one spot bored until they have to tackle a single mob which is also boring.
Get more people involved. Make it so you're moving to the next set of mobs. Make it so you've got things you have to pay attention to, like kill speed and cc breaks and order of kills. Seems like more fun, more challenge, more cooperation, more movement. More of everything that wasn't good about the monk-FD-pulling-single-mobs syndrome as the rest of the group waits bored.
