Trophies sounds like a neat idea. Maybe you could get different gear. It wouldn't necessarily make you invincible, but a gold-embossed breastplate of honor from the King would let other people know where you stand, esteem-wise. I think that would be neat.

Other trophies, like looted shields or angel wings or vampire fangs, could be stored eitehr in your home, or in a community museum of uberness with your name on it (Animal Crossing-style) or in hyperspace just to the right of your hand, so you can show it off whenever you want.

I direct you to Planetside Anonymous, not to beat a dead horse or anything. :p

Its true that in large concentrated battles the game takes a framerate hit, the seriousness of it depending largly on what kind of system you have, though amazingly people don't seem to complain all that much about the lag of the game in the forum's, they seem to mostly whine about weapon balance. They would infact argue about it incessantly, but inevitably reached a consensus one day that they were as balanced as they were going to get after a recent tweak in a series of tweaks by the dev's, course this was before BFR's where introduced. Anyway, lags not that big of a deal since people can always go somewhere else to fight, or if they choose start their own fight, truely Massive concentrated battles are somewhat rare, battles usually being spread out across the continent on several fronts.

AP, what was that in response to?

I've never played planetside, but I was always intrigued by the "certification" system I read about. It was back when the game was in development, and I'm not sure if it's the same now, but since it's an academic discussion, an old theory is just as good as a current practice.

The way I understood it, you could somehow earn or petition for certifications to allow you to operate certain vehicles, weapons, or powered armor. If you had enough time logged, or a high enough kill ratio, or met some other simple criterion, you would be awarded the privelage of driving a tank, flying a dropship, wearing stealth armor, or whatever.

Could something like that be featured in an MMORPG in place of grinding? Let's say you're playing World of Starcraft as a Protoss Zealot. You've been working hard, participating in campaigns and generally upholding the dignity of Aiur, and so you go to the Temple of Adun and submit a formal request for leg augmentations so you can move faster. Your case is reviewed, and you are given the appropriate upgrade. While you're there, you receive a commendation for valor and a chit good for one melee weapon enhancement at the Forge. They can't give everyone the upgrades, since vespene doesn't grow on trees, but you have the skill and courage that makes you a worthwhile investment of resources. Later, after more work and distinction, you visit the Templar archives and petition for Psionic training. You get accepted, and after a series of courses and tests (manifested as the designer sees fit) you are elevated to the rank of Templar, and can begin training such skills as Psi Storm and Hallucination.

I could continue that hypothetical indefinitely, but you see what I'm getting at. It would boil down to a sort of reputation grinding, doing things and making decisions until you gain the necessary esteem to get the boosts, but it wouldn't be so monotonous as simple XP farming, since you might get some rep increases from dialogue, absentee tasks (Going on vacation? Sign your character up for the expedition to Char. 98% chance of survival, between 500 and 1000 rep points awarded based on performance), or straight-up fighting. It also preserves the psychological slot-machine-payoff effect, since you would have clear rungs in the ladder (just one more shield upgrade, and then I'll go to bed).

I think we're still beyond the ability of MMO servers to promote a 'non-grind' gameplay style. WoW is being lauded as a quest-based gameplay to counter EQ2's grinding. The only major difference is that WoW's questing structure attempts to obfuscate the grind. Now you're not killing 20 pigs because they give you the best experience, you're killing 20 pigs because you need their tails to make a potion for the orc back in town.

A truly 'quest based' structure is not feasible for MMO games right now, beyond genocide quests and fedex quests. Blizzard is doing well in trying to create more open-ended event based quests(mostly in the endgame) but the vast majority is grinding.

That all being said, they're on the right track. Hiding the grind behind the facade of a 'quest' gives the player a lot more sense of purpose and achievement than just sticking them in a world and telling them to kill everything between Level 1 and Level 60.