Lowering the range, increasing the cool down, getting rid of friendly push...any of these things would make the game more enjoyable. At this point it's impossible to get anything done. Just pure chaos. Would be one thing if we only had to worry about enemy horses, but if there are 20 DLs on the map that's just a game of mu pinball.
I think we have to keep in mind the fact that most players still very much lack the sort of gear needed for this event (a majority of the server doesn't event have w2 yet, for example). There are plenty in game buffs that can also be acquired through playing and used for DS as well to make things easier. I personally like the idea of guilds needing to send in more than one party to work together on a spot. Makes it more challenging.
That said, I do agree that difficulty and reward don't necessarily match; drop of spells is pretty low and exp isn't much better than what you get on spot. I think the reward aspect could be improved to further server competition for DS.