Heard a suggestion in chat today that would work well for the first Arbiter quest (Reach Bronze III)

Have a sub level of Arena, call it 'Wood'.

No one drops into it (no whale corpses that die thru inactivity and slowly sink down the ladder).

Set the bar of challenge easy enough to get out of and progress to the next challenges. (Fill with bot teams, only Rares, but 2 lvl 60s 2 lvl 50s and 150-160 speed. It takes a while to get there. If you're whaling who cares. You progress just one early stage).

Escape from Wood, get a small lumpsum of points to upgrade your keep, progress the challenges then swim amongst the sharks in real Arena, buy tons of shards etc or ftp. Whatever. 

Everyone happy, a bit more than now.