After playing the Dungeon Expansion for a while me and my friend's realized that we never used the inner region anymore, and avoided the middle region more and more as well. The reason for this was that we found greater benefits in the highland and dungeon parts of the board and never went to the crown before we were able to give the Lord of Darkness an epic ass-whooping teleporting us directly to it instead.

Discussing this briefly concluded that we don't like this backdoor very much and ended up in alternative version for it. As beating the LoD with 8+ is quite an achievement we decided that the reward should be 1 strength and 1 craft counter each and teleportation to any space in any region except the inner.

Note that we're still awaiting our copy of the dragon expansion and not knowing what playing it is like we might go back to original reading by then.

On a totally different level of seriousness we're using another additional rule. The reaper never jumps when he moves, he hovers. We find it more realistic that way...

The first card is the fix we use for the problem that you (and many others) have mention. It is what we use, if and when we use the Dungeon. It is from an late addition to the "Space Expanders" pack found on the "Downloads" page at www.FantasticDiversions.com .

The second card is what we use along with the first as a fix for the Valley of Fire (which has always been lacking for its namesake).

The third card is something extra for the Highlands, and similar "Challenge" (Place) card re-writes can be found in the "In the Balance" expansion at the same site above.

I don't like the backdoor too.

But you could add the text space from third edition, that if you defeat the LOD, then you land on the portal of power. That's the original exit..

Yes indeed, the PoP was the way of things in the days of 3E... but it was also a shorter Dungeon. I think most 4ER players expect to get a little further now... though I'm still against anything that dumps a character straight into the CoC... without a Talisman.