I used to play a game called the walking dead road to survival which introduced something called survival road. I can only assume that it's similar to that for the fact you can only use certain toons on certain stages but the interesting thing about it was, the enemies you faced, would have mixed skills from what there actual skills are on normal gameplay. An example (wedge would have perhaps dookus skills) although that is not what I'm suggesting is the case here but it did bring a whole new edge to that game and has been rather successful to date. It brought a new type of approach to enemies and kept it interesting. However, they may style it in the way that perhaps certain stages/enemies will have certain immunities, perhaps all enemies ignore taunt on specific stage. Again just speculation. I personally think they should make it very challenging particularly for the older players where HAAT and rancor is older news, necessity for gear, but the fun is dwindling away from it. I'm a 7 month old player and I would personally be disappointed if it weren't a challenge so I can't imagine older players would want it to be overly easy :)
In addition - if a toon dies it stays dead just like in galactic war to ensure it is made into a team effort.