Didnt CBT have acceptable spawnrates that made grinding somewhat enjoyable? I remember a video comparision of the bottom right part of Tenet 2F, CBT and Early Access. The CBT spawn was so good that you didnt need to walk over the map to get decent exp. It is not really mob density, but spawnrate that makes grinding the unrewarding chore it is. Walking between the rooms of Demon Prison is tiring. And channelhopping in Alemeth is even worse, cause players with bad loadingscreens suffer from having to walk behind. In addition, this makes players avoid each other even more, cause any sort of competition for limited ressources is undesireable.
Having to grind all the way back to 280 without the boatloads of exp tickets you earned and used during the first run seems quite problematic to me, especially in the 165-210 region. You graduated from Demon Prison and got nowhere to grind cause the game lacks decent spots until Alemeth. In the first run, I cover this lvlrange by doing pretty much every quest and 100% explore. You could throw in 175 and 190 dungeons, but that would be a lengthy work cause of limited runs per day.
Of course, we could demand more decent grindspots with spawnrates close to CBT, but… I dont think I need to describe how Dina Bee looks like on every server every channel, right?
And another factor has not yet been addressed. You talk about the untradeable 240+ gear your toons are using pre-rebirth, but the way back to 240 would involve getting loads of lowequip again. I am pretty sure you did not keep your old stuff.
Really, what has been said goes heavily into the direction “Tree of Masochism”.
