This may be true if Blizzard hadn't embraced DBM back in BC and tuned their raid encounters accordingly. DBM is definitely not a requirement but with so many ways to monitor each and every aspect of a fight such as range from other players and boss cooldowns (nuking portals during Heroic Jaraxxus required impeccable timing when it was new) I have come to accept the fact that DBM is going to assist me in being the best raider I can be. Hell, when I first started the game I considered wowhead and thottbot as "cheating" but this game is so vast that it requires community corroboration to move along at a steady pace.

A very valid point. Voted+

Even so, I hope for Cataclysms larger health pools to mean that there is a little more room for movement... meaning that people who don't use DBM and the like have a chance at negotiating new content in a reasonable amount of time.

Perhaps that's the case to a degree now.. but I highly doubt LK25 would have been anywhere near completed if it wasn't for these addons.

The question (off-topic) might be: How mandatory are these addons and is it right that they should be so necessary for raiding guilds? Perhaps a discussion for another time... but I see your point. Although I see a difference between people helping each other and an automated addon giving instructions. Anyway. :)

After thinking about your question, I have to say in my experience DBM isn't a 100% raidwide requirement. For instance, even though my entire raid had DBM and there were trumpets blaring during flame wreathe our RL would always yell "flame wrathe don't you fucking move!" And I can basically recall from every raid encounter at least once where the RL would be the voice of DBM over vent.

"DBM and the like give no room for ingenuity, there's no risk, no ideas, no daring or genius... just pure labour.."

Ingenuity? So being warned that 'Fire Is BAD' removed your ingenuity?
Risk? I admit this is reduced - thats the POINT surely
Ideas? I fail to see how having something time abilities/notify you of events means you cant think about it - ideas are about responses, not the causes
Daring? - Sorry but from a RP point - attacking something 50+ times larger than yourself that can command armies etc does seem daring to me
As to genius, i fail to see how ANYTHING in the game can be attributed to that, problem or solution. Devious, yep...Cunning, sure....Genius, nope just dont see that - examples please.

But if you truely want to experience all boss fights without any raid enchancements, please feel free to form your own guild, or just pug em til you have had enough of people asking 'So are we meant to move when he yells BONESTORM and lands on us?'. Oh and please dont expect any Realm Firsts, or to be on the 1st 200 guilds on your server. (or much loot, etc etc etc)

He can dance if he wants to.

"I hate the Saurfang encounter when the Blood Beasts spawn... I don't use any raid warnings so if I time an unlucky Hammer of the Righteous or Consecration, everything goes to ****. :)"

TIp from a DMB-free pally tank: It takes two cycles of the tank debuff for the blood beasts to spawn. So they'll either spawn when you're taunting, or when he's being taunted and they'll keep doing it that way for the whole fight.

It's helpful to have a Hammer of Justice macro for that fight too so you can instantly stun a blood beast if someone else does some AoE at the wrong time.

The problem with conveying DMB info over vent is the lag often associated with it. Those two to three seconds of latency sometimes means that the warning arrives at the same time as the ability/effect.

In a former raiding life, this meant that a player who was adamant about not having DBM installed would regularly cause wipes, declaring that it was the raid leaders inability to call things out promptly that caused him to fail. This may be a bad example given the obvious. lol

Personally, I don't care if a player uses a boss mod or not. If they have the situational awareness to do their job without it, more power to them. =)

I think the problem raids have with not using DBM is unless they know you have the fight down perfectly, why should they trust you not to screw it up? A guild run probably knows how competent you are, but a pug would not.

Now perhaps this indicates how professional raids have become, where you have the Catch 22 of needing to know the raid before you can join the raid, but it seems this is the reality everyone has to deal with.

Like DBM or hate it, you'll either have to use it or else work twice as hard as everyone else to be viewed not quite as good. Whether or not that is fair is a different matter of course