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The Anachronia Agility Course and Big Game Hunter have become two of my favourite things to do in the game, and have been a major motivator to train skills I rarely train otherwise. They're genuinely challenging activities that require practice and strategy to get right.
Big Game Hunter is not without its flaws, but god damn it is engaging. I ran in blindly on my first go with no idea of what I was doing, and was chased on outta there just as quickly. I managed to get the hang of it slowly over about a dozen attempts. And from there, I've been working on refining the skill -- learning how best to move in order to down each dino as quickly as possible. Taking more risks, seeing more red circles -- reminds me of getting used to using Onslaught without killing myself, ahah.
This really is a skilling boss in all but name (hell, it's even got the boss HP bars up top). While it obviously lacks actual combat, it bears the hallmarks of good EoC bossing -- all about optimising use of abilities in order to overcome the abilities of a monster. Granted, "the abilities of a monster" here means having a whopping great circle around them, but then the uncommon instances of 2 or 3 dinos can shake that up. It also kinda relies on you doing hours of Shattered Worlds for Bladed Dive (and/or earning/buying Double Surge/Escape, for a less precise option). But that's entirely worth it, and can be equated to something like having to grind for a quest (it's certainly less hellish than the Menaphos grind)... and then you're whizzing around hunting dinos.
The Anachronia Agility Course is a different beast, and one I'd say is... basically perfect??? It feels like the epitome of Agility: genuine utility in getting around the island, a constantly varying feeling in how much terrain it covers, and requiring skill and good timing to do it well. Like BGH, it's also a moneymaker! (Moneymaking from Agility? Unbelievable.) Unlike a lot of Agility courses, I feel it captures (and deserves my attention), and it rewards me a good deal for doing so -- compare this to the Hefin course, which is so low-intensity you can keep your mouse in one position and just keep clickin' (or even do absolutely nothing, in the case of the Hefin posts). Again, having Bladed Dive is a big factor in getting the best times, but Double Surge is also a great help -- which is good, because this is the place it comes from! I can imagine it being good for Ironmen, in that respect. Do a bunch of the course, get the codex, do a bunch more of the course and do it even better this time.
I feel a real drive to push myself on this course. Lap timers are a godsend in that respect. The Hefin course also has these, but on such a small course there's barely any room for improvement. The Anachronia course, on the other hand, has so many places where you can shave off a few extra seconds (or stumble and add a few) that the times you end up with are a lot more flexible than the comparatively rigid Hefin course. Plus there's the variety of which direction you go in, and I find most people have a way they prefer. (North-South, in my case.)
Something else that the Anachronia course has to offer is competition! Every so often, I run into people going in the same direction on the course, and then it inevitably becomes a race. There's far more than enough variation on the course that a race can be genuinely compelling, with plenty of opportunity to overtake or fall behind. I found myself boarding the south side of the course earlier today with the goal of getting to some BGH dinos... only to see someone else starting the course at the same time as I did. Which led to me racing them round the whole course -- twice. (I lost by about one obstacle the first time, and won by a good margin the second time, getting a new personal best in the process. The perks of competition!)
A few days back I tried expanding the concept of racing on the course from coincidental races between to people into a full-blown event with multiple people. Hosted a clan event with prizes for the winners, and it was brilliant. The format of it is really conducive to competition, and even for those who aren't too good on the winning side of things, it's great fun to do together. There were a couple people in the race who'd never done the course before, and this was definitely a hell of a way to teach them.
(Big Game Hunter, on the other hand, lacks competition as a purely solo activity -- but the upcoming Clan Cup looks to change that. I'm hoping to help organise my clan's efforts there, because there's a hell of a lot of strategy to talk out and coordinate. I imagine BGH would also be a good candidate for seasonal high scores. It's similar to solo Dungeoneering speedruns in this respect.)
And after all this rambling, I have to conclude: these two activities are leagues above other Runescape skilling activities by sheer merit of having complexity and strategy above simply varying your clicking speed. What other skilling can you think of with genuine skill involved (that isn't something like a D&D or minigame... or Dungeoneering)? BGH and the Anachronia course both set an excellent precedent in making skilling something skill-based, and I really hope there'll be more to come.
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