The above topic has some thoughts about lighting in this game in general. I think that if we’re forced to engage with dark zones, then those dark zones should be much more engaging and have more intentional design choices that relate to teaching players specific lessons about combat in the game and creating appropriate skill checks for it. Otherwise, I think that lighting should be automatic and, as you said, enemies shouldn’t have such punishing mechanics in the dark zones. Or dark zones just shouldn’t exist!
As they stand currently, dark zones are just a huge friction point that breaks the flow of the game for too little purpose or reward. And now that I’ve said that, I’m also realizing this would be less of a pain point if these punishing dark zones just had much larger rewards than any other type of zone. Risk/reward, eh?