This statement is incorrect, you can lose crystals on anything from trash to the bosses before the instanced main boss on Elvia. Having more players participate in dungeons that they pour resources into is a net positive and it is less likely to become dead content this way like the other "group dungeon" they had before Attoraxian.

They could even increase Elvia difficulty to compensate for breakage removal, it should be about gear and mechanics, not about losing a 300m crystal to some buggy dungeon mob malfunctioning (and they do bug out constantly).

I think the whole breaking crystal idea is lame. If there has to be a penalty for death, make it a silver cost to revive, plus a repair cost for armour based on quality of gear.

I have different experience. I'm doing all three dungeons on elvia since pa released them. Of course sometimes bug occurs but mostly on last bosses. I don't remember any bug on thrash mobs or at mini-bosses.

Someone said about Krahtenn at first dungeon. Most people rushing like chickens into it without positioning/killing more mobs to pull him in safe area. If you can't do even simply mechanic then it's ok to get punish. Since they released dungeons I lost maybe 5 crystals max.

Flying "birds" on 2nd dungeon is also kind of gear check. If you can't survive with few birds around then you shouldn't do elvia.

To be honest I'm not against making dungeons 100% safe area from loosing crystals but also I don't see any big issue here to invest time in it (if it's more than simply task for developers).