Well put BobGnarley, and I mostly agree with you, but I'm a casual player

I don't PvP anymore because I don't like how it plays out with the rewards and ratings. I don't raid with others because most of my friends have quit playing due to either money/time/family. The changes made to spell dmg or power or totems or whatever doesn't really bother me, and tbh, I ignore a lot of it. I was a solo player before and now that I multibox I'm even moreso. I used to group because I had to; now I rarely do it cause I don't need to. In the old days I would take on just about anything in anyplace at anytime, which means I would have to adapt to constraints of whatever the game offered. It didn't matter if I like the changes or not, they're the cards I'm dealt so I have to adapt.

Everybody has an idea of how to make things better, but it's MUCH harder when you're the team that actually has to implement things. Kind of like being a armchair quarterback.

It makes sense that Blizzard caters to the largest number of players it can. Hell, if I designed a game, casual players would be crowd I'd shoot for. "If it's good enough to keep the casuals coming back, we're bound to hook some hardcores in the process!"....and making a hard game doesn't fit into that idea.

I hear others say the old days of pvp were great, but like you, I remember them as being a pain. Remember the first honor system? /cry

Overall Blizzard has done a good job designing a game that pleases both PVE'er's/PVP'ers and casuals/hardcores in the process. That's definitely not an easy task. And while I don't believe nor partake in conspiracies, I do believe we're playing a game that's different than the original devs design. I have no idea if the difference is vast or not. Did their initial plan have less players than the current player base? More or less world PVP? BG's and Arenas? It's all speculation and subjective at best.

The one thing I do know; there's enough in WoW that keeps me coming back again and again, and spending me hard earned money on it in the process.