The point being driven, in one way or another, is that the need for the barriers has changed over the years. With the current population and powers available to SL, the OP barriers are kind of necessary to a degree to prevent one guy from completely going Pain style and wiping half the village structure in one grand repuslive force, or the always annoying space-time ninjutsu users (I know, guilty as a preacher right?) that warp out the second you get a force ready to deal with 'em.
Back in the day when yall grew up, like, even pre-'08 status, the only space-time ninjutsu was the summoning technique, and I don't hear too many people making grand escapes using that on SL unless their animal friend gives them a lift (guilty as a preacher, again). Nowadays, between hiraishin, the many migrations, and pure custom items (come on choir, I already said I was guilty, cut meh some slack) sometimes it might actually be better to just leave the barriers up, and go to the zones if we wanna fight. There is a town zone if you want an urban scene to run in.