They have made it clear a few times in different interviews and possible posts they want the progression to be:

Ding 85
Run Normal Dungeons to get the gear required
Run Heroic Dungeons to get the gear required
Raid the first Tier of content.

I suspect CC will be required while we are in the first Tier of raid content (in the heroics) as we go up in Tier's we will outgear it and then brute force all the content and complain its 'ez-mode' and Blizzard sucks at making hard content.

When ICC 5 Mans came out everyone was whinging that they where not gonna be boxable, only the elite only the best could do it. Now a fair majority are clearing these. I too think 'heroic' difficulty should be Halls Of Reflection style hard. Perhaps not so AoE centric or chaotic but I enjoyed that challenge and only recently got co-ordinated enough to heal and dps and tank my way through Heroic mode myself.

There is nothing in Cata that says - the sky is falling.

Northrend had tonnes of collection quests, this is nothing new. We got through it.
Instances where harder at the start and got easier, this is nothing new this is just WoW Formula.

I think the main change here thats going to help boxes is the changes to Hero/Victory and Honor/Conquest points, meaning we are going to at least always have the last tier of gear no problems. So taking breaks from the game wont be a problem you'll always be able to catch up nice and easy.

Well those are my thoughts on it all. We'll be just fine. Even if click gets changed, we will adapt and find a way.