I'd like to suggest that the destruction of prestige items gives ponds favor at all levels, though ht XP remains off after 7 as current. This incentivizes working towards acquiring these items via feasts or otherwise and promotes more conflict.
Secondly, an increase in gaining favor to level 8 from 6 to allow people to continue to support the area. Ideally the rewards reduce some after the current set of levels, but this would allow folks to still participate in the general theme of the area.
Adding prestige sundering as a new source of Pond Favor could only be a good thing. The payouts of Pond Favor are already modest (yielding tools of escape and survival that can already be cheaply bought by civilized PCs), and I can only see good things coming from incentivizing Pond bandits to steal prestigious goods. Maybe also half XP for each item destroyed, at level 8 and 9? Then none at 10? Prestige is an intentionally controlled and contested commodity, after all.
Hunting and gathering should remain as it is, but I think a yellow server message should explain to new players that it is no longer a source of XP and Favor after level 6. The sudden loss of function might be confusing. I know that I had to ask in Discord to see what was up.