Time gating people into a 2 hour time frame was one of the worst decisions I feel like nexon made. It was added to the game to balance kishin from kanna but now with kishin gone there is no need for it. Feeling the need to squeeze out as much as you can in that 2 hours is exhausting and people have to pee or leave their pc and they miss out because of it. I love grinding for really long times but I also like a 30 min grind and a 30 min grind should be 1/4 of what you earn from 2 hours not significantly less because you didn't want to pop the totem to only use it for 30 mins, maybe you want to grind for 3 hours you still miss out that 1 hour of significantly higher exp. Forcing people into a 2 hour time frame for grinding is discouraging and I grind a lot.
However, the game is simply more fun with more exp and more mobs to kill. I agree with the decision to remove them 100% but in order keep the game more fun increasing spawn rates across all maps or even just more exp for each mob does need to happen, to keep the balance we are used to.