Here's what I've always thought.
The aggro cap is annoying. 17 was a random number that I never liked. I understand it, but I've never liked it. I also didn't like dropping Taunt to five target max. I understand it, but I've never liked it. It doesn't make "sense." It was a quick fix to having people who herded up entire maps and killed everything real quick, and PLed the piss out of everyone. That wasn't how the game was intended to be. And you know, it's ok for the Devs to say, "That's not what we want to see." "But we're paying for it! It should be what WE want to see!" Not really. I think there should be room for compromise, and when we get new Issues that give us stuff like new content, power customization and the like, they ARE making compromises and giving us things we WANT.
But the fix for herding and grabbing up entire maps and having 200+ spawn deathfests? I've always thought the aggro cap should either be higher (25-50), but they could remove it entirely, and make the "Taunt Cap" a half-life issue. Every time a Tank taunts, it has an automatic 100% hit rate on 5 foes, and then half-life hits where the next 5 foes have 50% chance to be taunted, the next 5 have 25%, next 5 12.5%, and so on, until every foe outside of however many it has in range (Taunt would then be a PBAoE, in effect) has a 1% chance to be taunted. Theoretically, if you toss out Taunt enough, and have the taunt from auras going, you could potentially Taunt every foe in PBAoE range, but it then keeps things from going back to the "Hit Taunt once, and every foe on the map is taunted and there is no longer any danger to the rest of the team."
There is no reason to remove the aggro cap and go back to how things were. What there is, though, is room for discussion to try and improve things. It was boring as hell for anyone who wasn't a Tank on teams where "Let the Tank do his/her job, then we'll have our five minutes of fun." Yes, when I was Tanking, it was fun, and the rest of my team sat around talking and whatever, going for drinks, heading to pee, and then would come back for the five minute deathfest. We would have multiple Tanks and trade off, or whatever, but it wasn't "fun for all," except during the deathfest.
Look beyond "What was fun for me, and some of the rest of the Tanks," and maybe look past that and find how we can take parts of that, and make it so that it allows for more Tanks for a reason, and makes it more active for the rest of the team, too. Taunt with a half-life? I've always liked that idea. Every foe can potentially be taunted, but isn't likely to be. You could potentially implement that on attack powers, too, instead of having max targets as a hard number. But it still has to be discussed and brought up with the realization that, even though "We pay for this!", it's not up to us, and we have to try and balance our wants with what the Devs are trying to create. We don't write their checks, we play in, and enjoy the world they have created, but they still have desires to see what they want become reality, and all that.
Blah blah, blah blah, blah.
Don't go back to how it used to be. Just try to bring some of that spirit and ability back in a better way.
