I'm right there with you on this. When I first heard of the 10 man path, I set to work right away getting together a group of raiders to make a purist 10man approach our goal. Blizzard blew a lot of smoke in the direction of "an alternative, separate path", but we soon came to realize that their decisions going forward in Wrath post-Naxx painted a very different picture. Complete absence of things such as Legendary quests, "cool" items (by "cool", I don't mean powerful), rare dropped mounts etc. have made us feel like 2nd class players in the eyes of Blizzard development. Recently even blue posters have when pressed stated that 25man players were "the best of the best", showing even they haven't been raiding 10mans with only 10man gear.

I've felt very bait-and-switched on this whole mess for awhile now. Either 10mans are an alternative raiding path, or they're what you do to boost your gear and get practice for 25mans. Blizzard seems as though they're trying to use the former to market the game, while using the latter to stroke 25man epeens.