To add my 2-cents, the argument over AE giving actual XP and/or rewards that are useable in the rest of the game was raised back on in the Live NCSoft days when AE was first introduced. Said argument was... and possibly still is... passionate.
To use my own experience of using AE, 90% of the farming I do is to level up my ever growing army of alts. A fundamental foundation of CoH is that if you want a particular Primary/Secondary set of powers on a character, then that has to be a new character. The condition we all suffer from, 'Altitis', is systemically linked to the CoH game design (and that isn't going to change). If you want to try out a new character, you can PL that character in AE (or occasionally in PI mission groups) so you can try out how that character feels at higher levels (even if in the mid-level 30/40's), because for many characters, they only start to feel good (or you can start to see the strengths and weaknesses) when you have twenty or thirty levels under your belt.
Of course, some people are purists and insist on never powerlevelling and playing the game as they believe it was intended. More power to them I say; if you like that style of game play, then go forth and kill Skuls, Personally, that kind of play is tjhe definition of pain. When I try out a character, I want to see how it feels when you have most of your powers available (I have about 150 different toons that are between level 25 and 35 who have sat unplayed for months or years as a result). Each of those was just an investment of two or three hours of fairly light farming, rather than the 10-20+ hours it would take to level the 'traditional way (assuming I could even find a steady stream of available level appropriate teams to play with).
I've drifted off the topic very slightly, but it was important to show my background and viewpoint.
- In terms of removing XP from AE entirely, while a small number of people will rejoice, most will either move their power-levelling into the pre-AE methods (such as PI missions) or they may just stop playing (at least on a regular basis).
- In terms of removing Inf from AE entirely, again a few peaople would rejoice, at least until they tried to buy set-enhancements, but the knock-on effects to the in-game market and economy in general would make most ENhancements out of the price range of the majority of the player base.
- In terms of removing the Empyrean to Merit conversion entirely? Well, that is something I can't really comment on in any depth since it's not something I've really done.
However, as good as the Homecoming player base is, it is not large enough to be able to sustain the loss of either Inf or XP from AE without serious, and most likely negative, ramifications to the size of the playerbase.
Personally, I'd love there to be level boosts to be available at the P2W vendor. Maybe with staggered pricing per boost level (1mil Inf for level 20, 3 mil for level 30, 5 mil for level 40, 10 mil for level 50): it would provide a fast way to get into playing your new character and putting it through it's paces, while also providing a nice Inf sink into the economy. Sure, people would still farm in AE for Inf, but people are always going to farm.
Maybe put a block on being able to earn Empyrean merits on such boosted characters until they have 20 hours played on that toon for example? Assuming that Empyrean merits remain. Maybe even remove the ability of boosted characters to earn Empyrean merits at all?! Just earning Incarnate XP and threads the old fashioned way: the price to pay for the convenience of insta-levelling (essentially you can eventually earn the incarnate levels in the broadly the same amount of played time)
The argument about giving people characters at level 50 characters instantly and being unable to play it? Yeah, we have that now.
Just a few rambling thoughts. Take it for what it is.