I think it should be noted that XP debt doesn't actually take anything away from you. It just slows your rate of improvement until you pay the debt off (this saps 50% of XP income). It's more of a slap on the wrists than a slap in the face and it really only becomes problematic if you die excessively and repeatedly at higher levels. Also the most debt you can acquire is half the amount it takes to level so the amount you're slowed by is capped and it would actually take some seriously learning FAIL to get to the point of having to pay off half an entire level's worth of XP before your XP rate returns to normal.
Furthermore, in a lot of scenarios you don't seem to take on any debt whatsoever. It seems like the more random and unexpected the death the less likely it is I acquire anything serious (e.g. turning a corner and walking right into a mob of purple enemies)
I'm not sure how much it takes away from the game to have zero consequences for death but I can't help but feel like there shouldn't be something. Without consequences you lose that "Oh crap!" factor when your health bar dips into that bottom third.
This seems like a pretty good compromise. You're not really punished severely for making mistakes early on but at really high levels where advancement slows to a crawl the stakes get higher, which is as it should be IMO.
