With regards to the idea that "Some things are boring to keep too many players
from doing it."

I don't think there's very many of us who didn't understand that was
essentially the purpose of the KBH mechanic. But I take exception to all of
this for several reasons. First, using little tricks to speed up the process
still leaves a lot of boredom in there, and plenty of songspells can't be sped
up at all.

Second, boredom is absolutely the worst method of restricting player entrance.
I'm willing to wager most players would rather have bards be player invite and
restricted in numbers than the KBH system. I wouldn't like that very much
either, but at least it would require more player interaction, which is what
the guild is supposedly all about.

Third, if you want something to take longer to advance in, just have the
spells require total might to train past certain percentages, or hell, even
simply have them cost more experience to study. The first would probably take
a bit longer, but allow useful spells to be cast in parties, which is far more
fun. The second would favor highbies less than you think, bard spells are
still often acceptable at lower percentages, and again, I think 90% of us
would prefer that kind of climb to the ordeal of idling.

In conclusion, boredom is a BAD MECHANIC. Even if someone can't be bothered to
code a good system involving quests and stuff to do, there are still better
ways to keep excessive numbers of players out of a guild.