This pretty much exactly what I was picturing in my head when we had that discussion. It's a hard thing to put into words!

I know, right? Yet it's pretty simple.

Why tie a particular core to a particular dumping point. Or is that just for demonstration purposes?

We usually assign cores to avoid multiple people trying to pick up the same one, or accidentally stealing one from another person. This also avoids crisscrossing of routes which prevents the possibility of one bubble containing 2 runners.

I’ve been thinking about this over the last few weeks.

I hate the four core strategy. It’s not fun. It’s not difficult in any sense that’s enjoyable. It’s just annoying. It’s efficiency for its own sake without any consideration for enjoyment (which is a problem with the game at large, in many respects). If you’re running cores you don’t really do anything, don’t have much to manage or think about, and your success (s far as whether you make it to the deposit area) is dependent on someone else doing their job correctly on a tight time table.

That encounter will never be as fun as it was before the four core strategy became prominent. It was much more enjoyable when it felt more difficult, but you could count on juggling the cores if necessary.

That encounter went from one of my favorites to my least favorite almost overnight, and it’s nearly killed my desire to run that raid completely.

Sad to hear. I'm not bored yet. I'd be willing try to the old way next time we play. I admit that I'm a fan of the well-oiled-machine stage of a raid's life. It tends to last only as long as we run it frequently.