I too hope this Lantern Mists is our substitute 'hardcore' for this year since they originally said there would not be one. I also hope that they bring back next year a tough version of the Hardcore (Lanterns seems a bit softcore and optional -- and missing the potential fear and challenge of everyone on an equal footing for death).
I would be pleased, perhaps if it is successful, that each year they have one Lantern season and one Hardcore season.
Finally I agree with Milburnion that a new way to rate challenge on hardcore reaper would be that each skull level gives you a reaper point -- so to be high on the leaderboard you would need to complete reaper on r3, r6 or even some r10s to get ahead. This would challenge the super skilled at ddo to risk their lives at higher reaper level to get more skull points but also more often wipe out leaders who reached too high on a quest or just the bad luck of spawning too many dooms and vengeances, etc.