Heroic pastlives were a secondary focus and were mostly used as a way to re-roll. Those who preferred farming XP rather than items got a small bonus for their efforts.

SSG really needs to follow this path with future updates. Removing bypasses/tomes from the store and staggering the loot (have one raid give rings, another weapons, etc) would be a great start. Although im not sure if they can do this given their current road map.

At this point in the games life its very hard to circumvent the decade of grind systems put into the game. Then you add in their current plan to raise the cap to 40 (as well as probably adding yet another grind system, Legendary Reincarnation). Which is difficult by itself to design an extensive item based endgame. How do you keep a level 32 raid relevant enough to keep up with a level 40 raid? Then you add in the jack of all trades player character game play design (Post-MotU gameplay). Which can make gear tetris mind numbing. 

Raid completions giving pastlife bonuses is interesting. Heres what I think might work:


Catch up mechanics:

• Legendary Reincarnation: Have Legendary Reincarnation also give an heroic, epic, and a racial/Iconic pastlife in addition to the legendary bonus.
• Catch up XP: Permanently increase all Epic Destiny experience gained by X amount, as well as Reaper (sentient system too). Introduce a stacking bonus to experience gained depending on what life you're on. Preferably a larger bonus at the beginning that tapers off the more lives you have. You'll still get a bonus regardless of how many lives you have. Introduce a permanent buddy bonus to promote grouping.

Creating an extensive endgame:

• Remove ways to bypass grind/walls: Remove raid bypasses or at least stop them from working in the upcoming 30-40 raids. Remove chest re-rolls in the 30-40 content, raise base drop rates. Cap store bought tomes to +8 (or less).
• Stagger the raid loot: Copy the Pre-Motu endgame. Have one raid give rings, another has weapons, etc. Create a roadmap so item tetris all works out in the end. Little or no power creep. The goal is to have 6-8 current raids at the end. 
• Create better reaper/mythic bonuses: Introduce reaper/mythic raid item bonuses. Instead of a flat stat increase, create bonuses that affect game play. Example: When healed by another player, +10% attack speed for 8 seconds or After a critical hit get +10% movement speed for 6 seconds. Make it random so players chase the best ones.
• Create fun raids: Stop copy pasting puzzles to pad out gameplay or adding cheese mechanics. Make raids fun to play.
• Raid only cosmetics: Create raid only attainable cosmetics/pets or weapon auras that makes players chase them. Its imperative that the cosmetics are actually good. Give them special auras or something. 
• Make raid items usable at a much lower level: Similar to the old Shroud weapons. Incentive players who always TR to get the raid items.

I blanked at the end. Im sure theres more I forgot but I think this would be a good start.

The level 20 endgame (Pre-MotU) was the closest DDO has ever gotten to a traditional mmo endgame (emphasize on items rather than XP).

Turbine managed to stagger the loot back then to make multiple raids worth running without really invalidating past loot.


Raids:
eChrono: Best in slots, +4 tomes 
eDQ: Best in slots, +4 tomes
EVoN: Best in slots, +4 tomes
ToD: Best in slots, +4 tomes (most reliable, 4% chance for every item slot in the 20th list)
LoB: Best in slots, +4 tomes
Abbot: Best in slots, +3 tomes
Shroud: Best in slots, +3 tomes
Reaver: Madstone boots, +3 tomes
VoD: Tharnes goggles, +3 tomes
HoX: Shields, +3 tomes
MA: Alchemical blanks

All these raids were worth running. Titan was even ran since Chattering Ring was best in slot for AC builds up until Cannith Crafting came out around Update 10/11.

Even If you had all the items you wanted from a certain raid you still ran it to get +3/+4 tomes. That is until the choice was made to sell +3 tomes in the store around late 2011 which killed off about half of the endgame raids overnight.

Epic quest and Raid lockouts (with no bypasses) incentivized running alts, increased content life, and limited the gap between hardcore and casual players.

Heroic pastlives were a secondary focus, reincarnation was mostly used as a way to re-roll. Those who preferred farming XP rather than items got a small bonus for their efforts.

SSG really needs to follow this path with future updates. Removing bypasses/tomes from the store and staggering the loot (have one raid give rings, another weapons, etc) would be a great start. Although im not sure if they can do this given their current road map.