Remember, this was when MMO’s were still trying to grow into a fully fledged genera and good game design for MMO’s wasn’t fully understood yet. World of Warcraft wasn’t due to be released for several months until CoH was first coming out and at launch it had something of the same struggle. How do you populate a zone with enough enemies to keep people occupied without making them look like they’re just standing around waiting to get shot up? This actually becomes very apparent when you view how mobs are placed about the city in City of Villains which came out some time later and even in Atlas Park which was revamped before sunset. Enemy groups that are milling about up to no good are used sparingly or are with groups that likely would just be milling about while everyone else is set up to be actively doing something within the environment.
Or options #3, which involves hacking and splicing what you know. Okay, so the first time remember they met was when they were older, but