"The problem here is that the only way to make the content gate itself is to make it so hard that even the hardcore elite guilds of the world have trouble with it, which effectively shuts out the other 98% of WoW players from every seeing it."

"The Gating is there to prevent world-class uberguilds from clearing the place within 6 hours of release because Blizzard had to make the regular mode accessible to less hardcore players."

Your two concerns are at odds with each other as much as bliz's philosophy. On one hand you are concerned about how fast ubber guilds will clear the content. On the other, you are worried that if they don't artificially gate and just make it gate itself, you are concerned the regular joe won't be able to clear it.

First, who care's how quick ensidia can clear content? Does that have any impact on you what so ever? (inc what I am going to get downranked for) Their ability to clear content as such a quick rate is a testament to how watered down the content is. Go look back in the records and see how long it took them to clear BT or Hyjal, and look at what it is like now.

And don't give me the "hard modes are hard" speech. I am no longer in a raiding guild now a days. Know why? Cause within weeks of the last boss of ToGC being available I got a pug kill on him. That's right, a pug.

Blizzard is systematically reducing the elitist content in the game. Problem is, that system has worked for them for years.