Preface: I don't like raiding. I'd prefer it if every existing raid was remade as a 6 player dungeon and there's never ever any raiding in this game again.
That said, why is Funcom so adamant on not adding any raids above Jade Citadel? I might not be one of them and I might think they're silly for chasing carrots on grindmills, but telling the hardcore raiders (one of the most diehard fan groups left in AoC) that "progression has ended two years ago" is just insane. Now they have nothing at all to look forward to. Once he gets the T4 stuff, the carrot chaser can't even hope that there'll be something else to get one day because he's been told that T4 is the end.
I cannot conceive why FC does that. Is it the PvP balance? Are they afraid that pve vets will be crushing pvp newbs over and over thanks to their über T9 shinies if they don't stop at Jade Citadel? Because there's an incredibly easy solution to that: just slap -1000000 pvp hit rating on raid items and a lv5 toon out of tutorial will beat a T4clad raider (I might be exaggerating here but you get the point).
Or is it the trivializing of old pve content thanks to overpowering players with items (hey there Atzel!)? I thought that's the point with PvE progression: letting you go back and pwn the bosses who used to give you such hard time if you feel like it. Admittedly I'd be pretty unhappy if a group in T9s or something could roll into Ardashir and casually kill the rhino rider before he can even do one charge, but that sort of thing seems like a very distant possibility. And even then, problem of difficulty can be solved by adding some expert/challenge/whatever modes to buff up old pve content.
If it's not because of these two reasons, then why? Why is FC refusing the carrot chasers to even have a hope? Even if FC has zero intention of ever making a T5, I don't understand the reasoning behind flatout saying "this is where PvE ends". What's up with that, could we possibly get an official answer to it?