So I have gone back to enabling the blizzard nameplate addon "Blizzard_Nameplates" to try and get a name only nameplate inside instances. Since 7.2 came and destroyed usable friendly nameplates and since I still want to know the name of my raid members in a raid, I thought up a way to get rid of the god awful default healthbar...

The following cvar set to 0.1 - because anything lower is ignored and 0 causes havoc (set the value to 0 and watch the lua errors roll in)

nameplateGlobalScale

SetCVar('nameplateGlobalScale',0.1)

Now I do not touch at all

nameplateMinScale
nameplateMaxScale

Because you modify at least the minscale aspect and it doesn't affect these modifications.

The outcome is nameplates "without" the healhtbar (there is a small remnant but it is barely there at all) and decent sized text that is not the boring blue crap that you see with nameplates turned off but names enabled (NPC Names all npcs and Always show Nameplates in Game > Interface > Names)

Below is a screen shot with KUI disabled and nameplates on. Granted I have overridden the default font so mine have a different font style but the outcome is the same. The drawback is the class colored nameplate cvar only applies to the ugly health bar

My point in all this is you might be able to set some options for users to adjust the default healthbar in instances to "fake" a name only mode.

In raid the default nameplates even without cvar edits are horribly optimized. I am closing this because they are trash and blizzard needs to be ridiculed for making them.

BTW it does not impact name only mode with KUI turned on. Same shot with kui enabled and in name only mode

And no, does not (in my testing seem to) impact FPS as I have the view distance set at 40 yard and that's quite a few names there

It also does nothing to impact enemy healthbars modified with KUI or titles/guildnames/ etc in name on name only mode below the npc/player name.

Popped into LFR for SOO to test in an instance quick and enemy frames show fine as well