Hey
I'll have to disagree about initiative being everything. There's quite a number of defensive teams to counteract faster players.
To answer your suggestions, unfortunately, the ruleset will remain as it is.
Also, cross-server functionality is meant to bring a vast number of servers to be able to match with each other. We wouldn't dumb it down. It would increase que times and that overall wouldn't make players happy.
I'm sorry that these aren't the answers you were hoping for, but hopefully, this brought some insight.
Try out new teams and keep trucking through to reach Six Paths!