I have been playing WoW since November 2004. I have quit a few times here and there. I was on a quit spell when the introduction of Cata was made. After some review, and playing a friends Beta, I couldnt be happier.

I am one of the few players, I think, who hated WotLK. HATED it. Over the years, I have watched content get easier and easier, and then to WotLK... where it was so much instant gratification of "gimme epix"

The game was developed, started, and grew in popularity because of how content was in vanilla. It was a real accomplishment to see a guy in full T1 or T2 or, if you were lucky to find one, in full T3, standing around in a major city. Very impressive. It took dedication, and strive, play skill, improvisation when things go wrong, (and do it smart), in order to get a particular boss down.

The game evolved into, [Run in, AOE tank, AOE heal, AOE dps], YAY epics! and the boss fights werent that hard. [Stand here, dps or dont dps, move some, perhaps, then loot.] I was very disappointed.

For me, (and I do recognize this is only one opinion on the subject), Cata is a step towards catering to the group of individuals that made WoW popular and successful in the first place. A Tribute sort of. There is still the "badge" gear, else the most of the gear is earned... truly earned.

Example: I had gone into a group dual boxing with other member of my guild. I told the mage, to sheep moon, and the lock to banish the diamond. BOTH of them... the mage says, "ok, hang on, I dont have that on my bar." The lock says "wait! what do you mean banish, I dont have a banish." (These players are new players since Wrath.)

LFG in vanilla was, "LF Fire Mage for MC!"
LFG in BC was, "LF Mage for BT"
LFG in Wrath was "LF DPS for Naxx"
Then its a "click me for a group, we dont care what your spec or class is, its all gooood."
LFG in Cata is now "LF Fire Mage for BoT"

Anyone else see the "dumbing down" there?

No. I rather enjoy the new content.