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Please let me say first that the 2nd Alpha Release is awesome! Pathfinder is approaching D&D perfection.
I strongly disagree on the way Raise Dead works now in regards to level loss. As I understand from the document, since it's possible after a raise dead all parties now will follow up with a restoration spell to eliminate the negative level.
I like the 2 Constitution points loss though, I suggest that as the straightforward consequence to raise dead instead of level loss, regardless of the level of the individual being resurrected. This Constitution loss should not be healed by Restoration or any other spell for that matter.
I've been using a version of this rule for a long time as a house rule. Instead of permeanent constitution loss (which can be devastating) I used a semi-permanent negative level (like Alpha 2). The difference between mine and Alpha 2 is that the ONLY way to get rid of this negative level is to gain as many experience points as it would take you to advance from the level at which you died to the next level.
So if you die at 5th level and it requires 5,000 xp for you to move from 5th to 6th you will have that negative level until you gain 5,000 more xp from the time you were brought back. You also can never have more than one semi-permanent negative level at a time so if you die again you have the same penalties, but you have longer to go to get rid of them.
This has worked well so far and keeps the sting in death without the permanent inequality between party members.
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I've been using a version of this rule for a long time as a house rule. Instead of permeanent constitution loss (which can be devastating) I used a semi-permanent negative level (like Alpha 2). The difference between mine and Alpha 2 is that the ONLY way to get rid of this negative level is to gain as many experience points as it would take you to advance from the level at which you died to the next level.
I too have been doing this for some time, with a negative level that could be paid off with an experience point debt.
Now, the restoration spell idea isn't horrible. Except that restoration isn't in the alpha rules, and the srd spell description says it can't be used for lost levels, and the material cost is 100 gp of diamond dust.
My suggestion is to reword the spell and allow it to restore a lost level if the caster can make a level check of some sort (making it not an automatic issue), and change the material cost to 100 gp x the current level of the recipient (so a 10th level victim with a negative level would cost 1,000 gp for a chance to remove the negative level).
I think there should just be a max amount of times you can be reserected like 2nd ed maybe your con score or your con modifier
and maybe the 9th level res doesnt count towards your raises
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I've been going the negative level route myself for some time now(letting the players gain back the negative level after they have gained half as much XP as they would need to gain a full level, so I guess I'm a softy in that regard). It seems to work pretty well, getting raised still hurts and its a lingering thing, so players don't become unafraid of death, however its still somewhat temporary, so a string of bad luck, doesn't take someone out of the fight long term.
-Tarlane
I have been using the negative level for some time as well. It encourages my players to keep playing the character instead of just creating a new character, which helps with some of the wealth imbalances that can occur when a player brings in a new character with full gear and the party has the old character's gear.