So, from a selfish point of view
Exactly, lots of ppl here talk from how it is for them. Im in the top clan and im a warrior, obviously i can survive longer than all other classes if i want, but i'll have to sacrifice the skills i want to use or needed for my dps for something that will
drastically decrease my enjoyment (im talking about being forced to change skills), even without this skills there needs to be some sort of reasonable amount of survivability and self regen skills/gear.
Also, OTM hve made lots of things to avoid death penalty, or to make this game less challengeable, such as popping heroic travel/going on my mount and run all Sreng's adds without even getting hit, challenge? Nah, easy as hell.
Running the way to boss, need group and fight them? Not really, if i want extra survivability i equip my shield and pop heroic travel and dont idol even once on the way to Snorri, i can use inv pot or heroic regen as well (plus they just added heroic armour and defence too).
There are lots of ways to avoid death penalty, most of them are plat based, but the only way needed to avoid death penalty is improving game mechanics making death more critical but far more rare.