tl;dr: If not cookies, it will be something else...all you will accomplish in the end is to remove something that creates a great deal of entertainment for a lot of players.
-------------
Something to consider before you make everything fun in the game useless...
I owned a food business back when food was changed from working like cookies (instant health) to heal-over-time, so I personally saw how much of a difference that change made, and it wasn't all good.
Instant heal:
- Pro: Food businesses were poppin' off, and everyone wanted to work there.
- Pro: I made a ****-load of money
- Pro: Huge money sink (50% tax usually)
- Pro: Pking was more exciting (in my opinion)
- Pro: Reason to make money, and spread out/pk on the gmap
- Everyone used to carry A LOT of food on them at all times in order to keep up with everyone else. Because of this, players were always spending money. To spend money, you need to go out and make it first. Boring, yeah, but from making money came competition and pking. Parties were formed to control certain areas on the beach or areas with the best flowers, and people pked.
- Con: Pking could be very, very lame when food was abused
Heal-over-time:
- Pro: Pking is more fair
- Con: Food businesses are pretty much useless, and believe it or not, food businesses were fun for a lot of people
- Con: Removed one of the server's biggest money sinks
- Con: Raiding and pking are less exciting (in my opinion)
- Con: People still find ways to have an unfair advantage, so what did it solve?
To be more specific, messing with cookies is going to do more than just make raiding "fair", and the consequences are something that need to be considered. For example, I'm sure a lot of people join every event they can just to get two more cookies. With cookies useless, they might not even bother joining events anymore.
Cookies probably do a need to be balanced a little bit, but don't go overboard to the point where they become useless.