Aye, the reason for the high fee(besides a way to pay crowns instead of energy) is to make people also playing ACTUAL arcade/missions. I mean, see it like this:
Playing a single lockdown map costs 200 crowns, with the chance to get some of them back if you win. Very well.
Now, in the arcade club, you technically pay for a clockwork run where you don't need energy at all. Even if we assume that each clockwork map is about the size of the LD-arena(and they most likely are bigger), that's still whooping 6 times more content in a single session, and I'm talking about the single tiers here(Full runs would multiply it by 3). Also, the price orients on the best case: If you suck and die after 3 depths, you won't get enough tokens for the money you spend. However, if you do, say, a full hardcore run down to the core, you can expect the tokens to literally rain on you... and the prices could easily fund your next 10 runs(note that I can imagine nobody actually pulling that off except the truly best people in the game).
The point is, you pay more for an attraction that offers you more content and tons of prices in the case you can deal with the rules. Not to mention that due to the fact that Krogmo himself pays the elevators, you have to calculate in that people would end up playing it more than anything else if the price is set too low, thus removing the need of energy in the game unless you want more crowns for it... needless to say, OOO probably wouldn't have interest in something that hurts their wallet.
Of course, I could be wrong with this, but I think we are better off with simply letting the players pay a high price. I just don't think the cons don't cancel out the pros enough without the high price. If you prove me wrong, though, we can just as well let the players pay less.
I am often online on other forums that include suggestion topics, so I already know the Dos and Don'ts for a good suggestion. Though technically I said the truth: I am quite new to this game and I love it. I am also quite new to the forum, and this is my first suggestion on this forum ever... but I had some experience to begin with.
Between: Your first link also links to the compilation. Judging from your text, you probably wanted to link to another idea with a similar premise as my suggestion.
This seems to be Arcade based quests where the team is given objectives but without giving directly marketable rewards.
Seeing as there would be no way to get your crowns back and no profitable items drop within this Krogmo version of the Arcade (which is very similar to this) the high entry fee is less necessary, depending on how many tokens are rewarded by various challenges.
Most of these I remember seeing in an older thread where your party is rated based on how you did, such as how long it took on that floor; ten minutes being the maximum for a passing score. There were other measures which would modify rewards somehow, I think it was by giving tokens for a new system or something, but if you got less than minimum you would get little to few rewards. If I find the thread I will link it here.
I may as well add this thread to my index here seeing as you are one of the only new forum users around here to have their first suggestion have a decent topic with decent effort and intelligence put in, even if the topic is old but not common.