Problems outside of P that are not P-hard While reading an answer by Peter Shor and an earlier question by Adam Crume I realized that I have some misconceptions about what it means to be $\mathsf{P}$-hard.

A problem is $\mathsf{P}$-hard if any problem in $\mathsf{P}$ is reducible to it with $\mathsf{L}$ (or if you prefer $\mathsf{NC}$) reductions. A problem is outside of $\mathsf{P}$ if there does not exist a polynomial time algorithm to solve it. This means that there should be problem that are outside $\mathsf{P}$ but are not $\mathsf{P}$-hard. If we asume that FACTORING is outside of $\mathsf{P}$, then Peter Shor's answer suggests that FACTORING could be such a problem. 

Are there any known problems (natural or artificial) that are known to lay outside $\mathsf{P}$ but not be $\mathsf{P}$-hard? What about under assumptions weaker than the factoring assumption? Is there a name for this complexity class?
I think you can construct a set not in $P$ that is not $P$-hard by a Ladner-style argument. Here's a specific example.

In his paper "A Uniform Approach to Obtain Diagonal Sets in Complexity Classes" (Theor. Comp. Sci. 18, 1982), Schöning proves the following:


  Theorem Suppose $A_1 \notin C_1$, $A_2 \notin C_2$, $C_1$ and $C_2$ are recursively presentable complexity classes and are closed under finite variations. Then there's a set $A$ such that $A \notin C_1$, $A \notin C_2$, and if $A_1 \in P$ and $A_2$ is not trivial (empty set or all strings) then $A$ is polytime many-one reducible to $A_2$.


To apply this, set $A_1$ to be the empty set, and $A_2$ to be $EXP$-complete under polytime reductions, set $C_1$ be the set of $P$-hard sets that are in $EXP$, set $C_2 = P$. The empty set cannot be $P$-hard (the definition of $P$-hardness for a language requires that there is at least one instance in the language and one instance not in). $A_2$ is definitely not in $C_2$. The $C_1$ and $C_2$ can be verified to meet the above conditions (similar to how Schoening does it for the $NP$-complete sets; see also this related question). So we get an $A$ that is not a $P$-hard problem in $EXP$, and that $A$ is not in $P$. But because $A_1 \in P$ and $A_2$ is nontrivial, $A$ is many-one reducible to an $EXP$-complete set, so it is in $EXP$. Therefore, in particular, $A$ cannot be $P$-hard either.

In the above argument, the restriction to $P$-hard problems in $EXP$ is necessary to ensure recursive presentability, since the P-hard problems as a whole are not recursively presentable and not even countable.
Now, "natural" examples of this are a different story...