Well, I like your hardcore system idea.
Do you have deathloss? (Can a person die in a hardcore area, and then not be able to go back and get their body?)
no, hardcore area means that:
only player who has not died within past 6 hours can enter this room. (these rooms have something useful)
For example: in my game water very useful thing, because you can make "almost like mana potion", but closest place to get water was ocean (takes like 1 minute to get there and come back to town)
But now in that hardcore room there is a well, where players with that access can take water.
The only downside of dieing right now is: player looses hardcore status for next 6 hours.
In future I am going to add more downsides like: equipped items will get soulbounded and loose stats and chance to loose upgrades.
SoulBound is new term what means: Item cant be upgraded.
Currently the only stats my items have are: armor, resistance %, defense. (everything else are considered effects*)
Upgrade means that item is enchanted with gem or stone. (currently i only have resistance gems and armor stones, but effect stones are planned on Patch 0.1.4)
Also equipment items on bag will have a decent chance to be destroyed.
And most other things will simply be destroyed.
Overall, for new players, dieing doesn't mean anything, might even be useful(free tp to town), but the stronger you are and more lategame you get, the more important surviving would be.
But anyway the answer to your question was: going to body is never necessary.