I have not been in a city raid lately, but if they made it if there it no equipment/gear loss on death in one; then that is actually a good thing. It will bring more players into them as they will be willing to use whatever gear they have without fear of losing it.
If that puts a damper on the full loot pvpers, too damn bad, raid pvp and normal or general pvp shouldn't be considered to be dealt with the same way.
All I can say is that if people do not need more than one set of gear saved up to replace lost gear, more people will do raids; me included (I have not been in one since I have not been playing the game for awhile, so therefore I am not even evenly equiped with most other players or have all the skills/talent points as them as well). Not to mention people would more than likely bring their best or better gears to them, which would bring more interesting battles in raids.