I see good teams all of the time. I also see random craziness where people just run all over the place. I don't think it's a "sign of the times" thing though. When people are doing xp runs they tend to move quickly and rmk over and over. I can't very well just pop into their game and expect it to be different. I tend to have a set of people that make up a great team, we sort of know how we work together. I've also met some people on accident that i enjoy playing with now.

I'm not down on elixir use. People use it for different reasons at different times. I tend to lvl without elixirs because I don't want to be embarrassed with bad technique when playing with others -- I want the skills. I have used elixirs when I'm on the last few quests of a campaign, by myself and bored with having to collect 4,200,000,000 yeti pelts or totems.

For the record, when I drop back and run a map with some lvl 20s or lower just to kill time, newer players see what running with a team is all about and they tend to want that experience again.

I don't want to fall into being a PL curmudgeon, longing for "the good old days" and lamenting the time when I was a kid.

(Oh and I tend to chat a lot during play as well)