Exactly, we don't get better loot for playing during lag spikes, why should other meta-game matters impact drops.

Also, can't they just have 25 person raids drop three items for every one that 10 person raids would?

Indecently, running both in a week would still be an option, so as far as getting gear, people would keep doing both, and as far as having fun goes, why would people want Blizzard to have incentives for the form of raiding they enjoy less, all other things being equal?

My friends and I have had this exact conversation but we would like to push it one step further. Why aren't there epic level 5 mans? Fairly massive dungeons on the same 1 week schedule that can only be done by 5 players.

The only skill difference is the raid leader's ability to heard cats and to combat random DCs.

The whole idea behind massive scale raids is a fun one but I don't know why it ever became the standard end-all be-all of progression. To me 5 players out to defeat a god is just so much cooler then a small army doing the same thing. 25 mans or higher should be something epic that happens once a month or less not something that is farmed by alts weekly.

Quickshiv:

One thing you and a lot of other people are not reallizing is that it is really hard to make a well-tuned 5 or 10 man *hard* without making it *impossible* without the correct group makeup. To give a a few examples, Magister's Terrace was a pretty difficult heroic. Generally speaking, it took certain group compositions, ie sufficient cc. When they're designing 5-mans, they have to consider all the different classes and possible group makeups, and cannot assume that any particular class or ability will be present, other than tank, heals, and dps. That is, you have limits to your design because you can't assume the presence of two tanks or two healers.

In 10-mans, they have some more freedom. They can require 2 or 3 tanks and healers by boss mechanics, giving a lot more freedom in encounter design, both in variety and difficulty. Still though, they can't assume every buff is present (ie bloodlust) and have to tune the encounters accordingly. Take note of the obedience crystals on Instructor, making this fight easier than the 25-man, or the MC that KT does. Generally speaking 10-mans have to be tuned more loosely than 25-mans.

In a 25-man, they tune encounters assuming every single buff will be available and used. Whereas in 10-man they don't want to punish any class or spec for not bringing enough buffs, in 25-man they can assume every class, buff, and ability is available.

Now, obviously, this isn't true in Naxx. As someone else points out later on, Blizzard basically admitted that they messed up on tuning. 10-man is about right, but the 25-mans (at least Naxx) were made too easy--GC has said so multiple times. The point is, they *can* make 25-mans harder, but failed in Naxx.

That said... I wonder if there really isn't something to 25-mans being somewhat harder, based on all the responses here, many of which boil down to, "Why would players want to do more work to get the same gear?"

Soteria, as far as I can tell, people don't like 25 mans as much because if you just have to deal with far more people messing up. Not in boss fights, there its actually easier to pick up the slack from a few people dying than in a ten man raid, but as far as logging on late, forgetting to repair and grab reagents, disconnecting, going afk to get some paper towels to clean the cat pee of the computer...
And so on.

Also, part of the fun of raiding is conversing with the other raiders, but it's challenging to hold a twenty five way conversation over the internet, whereas in a 10 man raid, if half the players feel like talking, you end up with a manageable chat.

What Blizzard should do is, provide candy to people that are involved in 25 man raids to keep them fun for all.