I even remember people PLing with catapults in Lough Gur...

I remember we were using palintones (or trebuchet?) in old frontiers. When we were out for some serious keep attack (the kind of big planned attack with a group assigned to each keep), we always had a ballistae + a battering ram.
When at the door, we didn't deploy the ram until we were sure there wasn't a cauldron. No cauldron? ram. Cauldron? We build the ballistae at the range limit, to attack the door from distance. I remember I had macros to aim at the correct distance: I come at the door, half-turn, macro to aim at the good distance for ballistae, go there, built there. It didn't work only for some keep with a very long & steep slope. I don't remember if it was moving, I suppose not (but could be turned, but that was a bit buggy).

The ram could be turned too. The only fail was about the distance (since it didn't move at all). And we could aim a player with it. That was really funny to oneshot someone with it.

About the catapults I remember we were buying one to defend the keep the guild took. Someone was doing the aiming for me, from the battlements. And I was assisting him to do the ground aiming (/groundassist?). And then I was launching the flames boulders from the courtyard. I waited they go away from the doors to recover, and then BAM!
(and it was great too to free a blocked emain gate: or we killed a bunch of hibs, allowing mid to approach from behind ... or they let go of the gate to attack the 4-5 catapults we made, same effect mid behind them and it usually unjammed the situation)

I don't remember very well, but perhaps we had palintones someday, just before the battle grounds appeared. Perhaps just on the test servers, or for a short time on live. Or never, don't remember that.

If I understand well, there isn't boiling oil on Uthgard?

there were never any cauldrons in OF

Phaeton wrote:there were never any cauldrons in OF

Alright.
But there were at least one! The Cauldron of Dagda!