Well first of all, the original settings were never tried out. The kinda similar was 114 with a bit slower speed, paladin with skills, 1% fake limit and 150 ms (just the most important differences and all togehter these changes make huge impact, all of them prefers the defender imo).
While 116 was way closer to what the forum majority wants, with a bit higher speed and paladin with skills. Also there were 117 with disabled wt and nightbonus, but with fake limit (which isn't an option here, but few people likes it too, and I would prefer it too over the 5th option).
If you say both of them are too much, I would say neither of them (nor fake limit) are too little. Look at what happened in 116, where is an excellent tribe playing with aggressive style with fitting setup, unmatched by any opponent and they nearly won the world in 7 months. The only question is when will they get the last %. In these setups there is almost 0 chance to create proper resistance on the fly from 2-3 tribes together, because of the fast attacking pace. This will be probably one of the easiest win lately or ever. Also check their ODD and compare to other lately winning tribes, you will see 2-3x less. The almost same tribe won on w111 and they had 6x more ODD.
All in all the original settings prefer the better solo players (I would say these are 20-100 players on the rankings later on the game, "old style guys" who are willing to spend more than a year, even two for a world.
