a shame he didn't go into the sandbox style.
there you have an easy answer imho where elder-game or whatever he calls it, can occur at any point.
i don't care too much for the SWG NGE, but SWG still is a sandbox. Build your house and decorate it. Make another house. Go questing. Come back. Go to space, then ground quest.
It is a time-sink, yes. But not much than simply grinding.

and another thing I miss in the raid discussion, is the fact that no matter how cool the team play might be, that it also is pretty demanding on team play and can not be handled by many who don't bring some leadership skills into the game to begin with. only peripherally he seems to question if it has do be done multiple times (as in same raid over and over for a piece of equipement). this could be at least compromised by making random maps instead of always the same.

but yes, i realize, answering a summary of a longer speech is not nearly doing justice to the whole discussion.