I think there's two issues with the XP penalty: rational and social. You can argue all you want about the practical/rational/actual effects of having an XP penalty ... but I'll leave that discussion to others.
I just want to point out that there's the equally (more?) important social aspect. Certain class/race combos are going to be perceived as eating up a ton of group XP and not giving an equivalent value.
Regardless of the truth of that (eg. the fact that class A/race A actually has the same or similar penalty to widely reviled class B/race B), the very perception about certain classes/races by the player base is going to have a real impact on what it's like to play those classes/races.
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