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... and not leaving behind the entry-levelness of the game, i.e. you can not now anything about the game but still have fun and get to the end of it. (Unlike a certain Diablo game...).
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It takes only as much skill to finish Diablo II normal as it does Titan Quest normal. The difference between the two is that Titan Quest peaks in difficulty at that point (the beginning of Act 4 Normal, which is rather tough) while Diablo II realizes some kind of compromise between accessibility and depth, and gradually amps up the challenge between its three difficulties in way that isn't apologetic.
To summarize my point, It is not to anyone's detriment that Diablo II's Hell is such a challenge, but that Titan Quest's Legendary is so easy is detrimental to almost everyone who has invested enough time to get there, so I disagree with the assertion that a challenging 2nd or 3rd play-through is elitist, exclusionary, or at all a forfeiture of anyone's experience.
The way I see it, Normal should provide a playground where classes are free to solidify at a very forgiving pace and new players can enjoy the game's flavor unshackled by its mechanics. Titan Quest does this rather well, but perhaps with some uncomfortable troughs (the entirety of Act 2) and zeniths (Act 4's beginning). Epic represents the shift at which the player stops playing for the storyline and begins playing strictly to advance his character in gear and levels - it is the gym. It should be more fruitful in cool items than it is challenging, although not to the point of boredom, as is currently the case with Act 1 and 2 Epic. Lastly, Difficulty 3 is the track, the test for which your character has been preparing all through Epic. In Immortal Throne vanilla, Legendary is a lackadaisical tube ride with a few inconsistent and brief sections of rapids. That is a problem, and if a community balance patch dealt with that the longevity of Titan Quest would be significantly expanded and its accessibility not compromised.