also going to throw out the fact that the assumption that only 1% of the player base is going to get hard mode gear is flat out wrong.
the current active playerbase has not peaked above 100 in a long time, and the current average peak time player count is around 80. meaning that if only on average when a team of 10 completes a raid they make up over 10% of the total online player count
as for not concurrent average but actual total active players %, there would need to be 1000 players who consistently log on for it to be 1% of the player base who does hard mode. BUT thats only if one group is capable of completing hard mode. there are probably around 50 people who can do hardmode successfully(50 people without including other people being carried through the raid), meaning that there would need to be 5000 people at endgame to make these 50 people 1% of the player base.
I would be extremely surprised if there was more than 200 people regularly doing endgame(the number is probably sub 100) meaning that at the highest 25% of the population are able to complete hard mode.
so, in conclusion, 25%(atleast) now have no reason to do hardmore other than invisible stats 