So I took it upon myself to crank it up to Elite. I than went for the War Games mission at Captain 2. Here's the results with my Engineer captain, BO's 2 engineer, 1 tac, 1 sci
I enjoyed the ground battles with the mobs as they took some strategy and good use of skills. I was killed twice by damage that bypassed my shielding for the most part. I blame my sci BO for not keeping track of my need for healing

I died about 6 times fighting the undine boss at the end as its psionic attack ripped me to shreds with 1 or 2 blasts.
I received 4 major injuries that cost 2400 to treat.
Drops - Here's the good part. I had 3 uncommon and 2 rare drops during the ground section.
I have to say that the increase in drop status coupled with the need for strategy and consequences for death improved my experience.
Well played Cryptic.
Comments
I just did the RA5 explore daily on the K side with the slider maxed. 1 space and 2 ground maps. All the fights were more difficult but all the drops were common or worse except for 1 Crit regen.
Anyone else?