PK was abundant, thriving and the player numbers were high back when there was no CRS. AND the cabal hqs that I remember were all close to inaccessible to everyone who were not members (or followed them as they entered).
Back then imms were more involved as well. If you got wrecked over and over they might press on to let the other side gain something, like a watchtower or annihalate areas and build new ones (remember Teron? Though that may have been after CRS?).
Back then some HQs were super atmospheric. Like remember the old druid hq? Or the fist masterpiece of a hq that was made just before CRS was implemented? Man, that was a place you wanted to RP.
And really, no good game i ever played was balanced. Let cabal hqs have some flavor again
So, how about if people want to pk they become a bit more patient. Either setup planned fights (yea that actually happenef before), wreck havoc on an enemy city or whatever and send logs to imms and let them decide if areas should be changed to reflect victory, or play the patient game of waiting for the enemy and ambush them (bash failure against reflex saves ratio needs to be tweaked a bit tho :p) .