I have to say that my thoughts on drops are that they polarise people, you can either ride it, or you can't.
You could survive that with a bit of balls and not much skill, conversely plenty of riders/races with plenty of skill will decide that the 5 seconds they may gain are not worth the risk of it ending the race/season. I'm sure there are plenty of people on here who'd ride that on their 5" travel bikes and think it easy, but are not even close to having the skill set the top XC racers have.
Techy descents are a better addition IMO, there's a real reward for being able to hit things fast, and ride them smoothly.
Edit:
it's no bigger than anything you'd find middle aged trail centre riders riding on the average red route.
Bollocks, complete and utter! And the 'average middle aged' rider will have paused for breath at the top so be relaxed, not have 150 riders right infront of him, not ridden it 7 times previously, not be at 95% their max HR, not to mention the fact they'll have stopped to drop their seatpost on their long travel bike with relaxed angles, 2.3" tyres and wide bars.