This is kind of crazy to look at, but the high power cards do need some support to truly be busted. That kind of support is probably lacking, given the rest of the environment. Still, there's a few of those cards that I personally wouldn't touch in any circumstance. Can't you just make the 10,000th INN or RAV cube? SMH my head...
Have you ever considered a structure where you run 3-4x commons, 2x uncommons, 1x rare? Optionally, then you can seed packs like retail or shuffle and let the ratios kinda do their thing.
Well, let’s split it into some parts:
Inni/rav cube: Nope, my playgroup is used to old cards and the playstyle that comes with it, e.g, weak creatures and no must answer cards.
rarity ratio: almost equal between rare, uncommon, and common. In those days rarity often did not imply power, but more (reading) complexity. Besides that, there are many commons which are on par with rares. There is chaff in each rarity. I considered it, played with many pre-constructed decks, drafted a bit and discarded a typical set/block structure after serious thought.
Please do not adhere to the (flawed ? Well, maybe it was beter then than now, e.g, madness) rarity of those times.
That leaves the SMH part. It is all about the environment. Yes, you are right that some of them need support. Others, like
Do not need an environment to shine, however they do need an environment to prevent them to become powerhouses. Well, echo is a bitch. It hurts to pay the echo of the hermit and then get shocked. Similarly, stealing an echo creature implies you have to pay the echo (even when that cost has been paid by its owner already). So it often turns into a destroy. As an extreme example of comparing a card to the rest of the environment:
molting harpy is a good card when there are no other flying creatures. Similar points hold for
plummet disenchant