So, just as a short summary - even with full-on flower gear, landscape mobs are very, very hard. I was in tank mode pretty much from the get-go. As soon as you get even the most minor light gear, though, they're back to so-so again. I stretched a little bit in the instance dungeon I'm sitting out front of in the picture, and I picked up 9 level 107 baddies - burned them all down, just like normal.
One thing that I sort of chuckled about, though - med armor classes are given almost exactly as much fate as I already build to. No lie. I lol'd a lot. The gear seems to scale right along with that, too, and gives you more and more fate in proportion to agil and vit.
Mits are just as you'd expect from the changes we accidentally saw in the recent update. The equipment you get, though, scales you right into it. Get ready for a LOT lower morale than you're building for now, and a lot more finesse. You'll need it. With the extra finesse, though, you hit plenty hard. With the extra resistance, your defenses are a lot higher, though, too. It seems like it builds to parity.
The shadow/light mechanic works *sort of* like radiance, but the +light stats seem to be inherent in all of the "special" armor drops/sets. With that +light, I had to get really, really far off the beaten path before i started getting debuffs. I'll play with it more, and see if I can test to failure, but while everything *is* legitimately harder, it's harder in the sense that a new zone, before you start getting better equipment, is always harder. It's definitely got the right feel to it, though.