People here should also not forget that when people reach max level the experience penalty no longer applies. This was something that was mentioned in the producers letter:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/edit...rs_letter.html
Here is my previous post here where I explain what I know:
http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...997#post827997
I think that they overestimated the power of the extra abilities given to hybrids. The primary reason I think this is somewhat related to the class population link in my signature. What that shows is that the group-based classes succeed in reaching max level much more than hybrids. So for every instance of a character being created at level 1, if they're a hybrid then they're less likely to reach cap. If you think about it, it's not hard to grasp. The major reason that hybrids were not invited to large groups is not solely because of their experience penalty, but instead because specialized classes could always do their role better than a hybrid. For example a warrior will tank better than a paladin or shadowknight. A enchanter will cc better than a bard. A cleric will heal and buff better than a paladin. A druid will cc and buff better than a ranger. A rogue or wizard or monk will (burst/wizard) dps better than a sk or ranger. And so on.
What good are all those extra powers if it doesn't get you into large groups?
What I think really happened is they increased specialized abilities in the hybrids above what they'd be if they were truly balanced. Specialized abilities are things like tanking or dps or healing or ccing. If they were truly balanced there'd be no need for an experience penalty. Clearly, SOE believed at the time that they were not truly balanced. I think this is because they either increased their specialized abilities or they simply could not accurately measure the value of intangibles like root and snare or feign death or loh. Those intangibles ultimately tended to become redundant in groups and perhaps verant designers did not foresee this as well.
People here really need to level from 1-20 with root/snare and without root/snare. The value of them is hard to measure. They can both be incredibly powerful and at the same time redundant. For example, if you're killing near a zoneline then root/snare aren't nearly as interesting. Whereas, if you're in a big zone like west karana or too far from a zoneline, then root or snare can be a life saver. If you're a big group, chances are more than 1 person has root. More than all this, if you really compare a warrior in the low levels to a ranger you will see clear differences in power, especially in smaller groups or in solo situations. It can be really life saving to have a ranger for root/snare in a 3-person group if the cleric is spending too much mana on healing the tank, for example.
There's also the issue that being able to solo well has its advantages. Soloers tend to have invis and root and/or movement speed buffs and tend to be able to handle being on their own well. So if they can't find a group then they can fill in the downtime with experience. And if they're doing a quest that nobody else wants to help them with then their utility is very helpful. Being able to solo is definitely something that's not free in everquest. Can you recall how many times you were alone as a non-hybrid? Just add up all that time and imagine how much better it would have been with root/snare/heals/dots/invis/sow/etc.
But overall I think that the superiority of specialized classes in groups won and this is probably the primary reason that the penalties went off the cliff and so were removed. In the end, all the utility in the world is meaningless if it's only good in solo or small group situations. This was the lesson.