Actually I think the overiding reason why the crypts are farmed a lot is due to one reason, healing Potions... The most common reason I get from other characters asking one of mine to go down with them is always to get skele knuckles, no matter what char I'm currently on either.
There are other places you can get the challenge which is even lower, and it will still give you loot and challenge, and knuckles:)
I have been mostly away from the temple because it is crowded, also i have found a number of ingame reasons to not dwell there.
I have been down to the crypts like twice, but not ever since and will not do so, after a few occurance down there and above in the temple.
I keep trying to promote other places, but all i get is usually ignored. I spend nights in wachter lands, in tigans, in the slum ml temple, in the ladies(sometimes alone even there!), in broken bell but i have not met anyone there so far. (Today is the first time there are others in tigan!)
most of the time the temple has like 30+ chars inside....and one after another a farming train leaves, during day folks go to the beetles.
My VERY low level ranger allready killed a deep forest wolf, a bandit fighter, a marksman and an archer...folks just need strategy a bit of thinking, and to go away to learn about things:)
Actually i wonder why nobody uses holy traps vs heacuvas and skellie knights:)
Another thing, you can start to do crafts, since the good old belsescu pays you, ofc delivery is much more rewarding since it gives you XP and huge gold amount, but during crafting you could easily have a good rp conversation. (Allthough with woodworkers and smiths it is hard, since they cannot craft en masse things)
During NCW i have been mostly crafting and rping, and very minorly dungeoneering , allthough i have killed a few things that attacked me out in the wilderness.
Not everyone can go out, but with a semi decent spotter in the group you can easily notice most of the challenges and threats and find alternative routes to get whereyou wanted. (beside the Lodge:P but if all goes well i will deal with the alphas soon enough:)))
Also i do not know how many events were made or set, but i have this feeling that most of the DM run events or encounters all happened in the Temple or in the outskirts.
I think that this is sadly a quite contradictory approach, since if the temple gets most attention, most and regular folks will not leave the place, since they fear they will miss out something. Also many players have the mindsetting to get involved in EVERYTHING. In which case i think a character should get himself involved in things that are okay with his goals, allignement and so on. Know when a thing does not concern you, you will get more out of leaving something alone in some cases. (Also consider this when you are WAY over the level required to finish the DM set task, it may have not been meant for you, and you may likely just destroy what the DM has thought out, and ruin it for the other characters who had hoped to participate.)
Oh one thing, or suggestion:
Beside the divineing pool, it would have made much sense to give the ML faction members (Ezrites and such) a number of holy water flasks they could have used to hand out and reward folks, since it would have worked well as vanish vs undead. Also could have helped to defeat undead, and to use bows and such. Or Dm-s could use Liz to provide these:)