Or conversely, because I end up with asshats in my groups that just stand at the entrance leeching off those of us who run the instance, I can't kick them immediately like they deserve...

Sadly there is no way the vote to kick system will be perfect.
No cooldown on the VTK and douchebags will kick lowgeared players.
Cooldown on the VTK and people will leech.

I would love to see a system where the cooldown is also lowered for people who often get kicked as there is probably a good reason for it if someone has to be removed often...

There's a system like that already: Guilds. Run with some friends, and you won't (ideally) have to deal with people like that.

@ Lars

Does that honestly happen so often that you're kicking every time? I can count on one finger how many times someone has tried to leech off of my group.

Sadly, the LFD tool will always see a need for the vote kick option for random pugs. There are still ways for seemingly innocent tools to be abused. The scenario of four guild members grabbing a pug person who is kicked at final boss, now those four people take turns initiating the vote kick. I realize the history will be tracked, but someone is bound to have vote kick off cool down.

What if a person was extremely unlucky and queued randoms only to encounter the /afk tank or healer time after time. As a mostly dps player, I've come across real frustration in LFD, always knowing that the 20 minute wait looms about me, like the odor of sweat socks not placed in the clothes hamper. It's not as though griefers don't exist in many forms. I have witnessed better behavior from groups of kindergarteners than the *adults* in pugs. Sometimes a person gets into a group with a butthead and no one else will initiate a vote kick because the other people are all pacifists(or masochists).

Perhaps assign a chaperone/nanny for each group, based on a player's past reputation in LFD pugs?

Ok, getting back to patch notes, more delays on content. Cataclysm itself now has push backs on content release(heroic old dungeons). Does this speak to possible delays of the expansion itself? I'm all for just letting them get it done and release it all at once, instead of staggering content. Releasing content bit by bit has historically lead to more server downtime, as live servers reveal bugs and glitches not discovered on the test realm.

the idling at dungeon entrance should be an easy fix. no emblems, or loot if you're not on the threat list for the mobs involved.

What would be even nicer is if they implemented it as a stacking debuff that increased with each occurrence of *sshattery.. But this is a good start.

"The scenario of four guild members grabbing a pug person who is kicked at final boss, now those four people take turns initiating the vote kick. I realize the history will be tracked, but someone is bound to have vote kick off cool down"

I have used the dungeon finder (sometimes by myself and sometimes with a few guildies) almost everyday since it came out and I never experienced what you are describing here. Why would those 4 people wanna waste time kicking the pub guy when they could just finish the instance, get their badges and be done with it. The whole idea of kicking someone just to grief them out of their badges is irrational.

Anyways all I am saying is that no system is perfect and that the current implementation of the LFD is pretty good. Yes, the cooldown on the LFD gives people an incentive to leech off other people but with majority of the people wearing at least 251's dungeons can easily be 4-manned. Personally, if he's still not moving after 15 mins, I will initiate the vote to kick. Otherwise, I could care less. I still get the same number of badges why should I be concerned.

This is why I ONLY tank for guildies now. I have all my gear that can be bought with EoT (there IS a reason why the title is "the Patient"), and now I don't PuG anymore with my tank. On the other hand, if you are a tank and I get in your group with my mage, you will find that my DPS is low but the group rarely wipes (I can't say never, cause there are other people involved, but I play for the team not for the DPS meter).
Wish other people would play the same way.

I think the Vote to Kick option should have a longer cooldown for people who GET kicked more often, not the ones who initiate the kicking. I run alts through dungeons a lot, and I get a lot of people who leech off the group, disconnect without leaving the party, or are terrible players trying to get us all killed. It can't get exploited that much when you need a majority vote to actually kick someone.

@sky, I've had that happen to me. A group of 4 guildies were running with an alt of mine through UK, sassing me occasionally and dropping hints that they were judging if I was worthy. I don't know what criteria they chose to use, because I was not pulling aggro while second on dps yet they kicked me right before the final boss without warning.

Now that I think about it, I suspect they were trying to grab a guildie for the final boss, who was maybe underleveled or something, so they used a pug dps to take his spot until right before Ingvar. Wow, that's really selfish.

@Lars Petersson

But as asshats do get kicked, they will think twice about it. Also, you have four people in your group and at least the two others needed for a sucessful kick, to pool from, if you are on CD.

As a Tank that hates leeches or Unauthorized MD Hunter pulls, Pets on Aggressive or Rogues getting spotted for a nice wipe, I appreciate this ability.

One time we had to kick this guy because he was a self proclaimed Lvl 70 Twink, running MT in Sunwell on Heroric .. and decided to keep pulling the entire room when I was OOM, "Not a Twink" with three other, "Not a Twinks" caused two wipes, so we had to let him go. Only to get a hunter, that must have been soloing content or questing, with her pet on Aggressive, join us right when we are going for that big pull in the middle ... ouch!!

Couldn't kick, she wouldn't put her pet on Def or Passive and we had to wait until she left to continue. It was too dangerous otherwise.

Four manned after she left. It's not that the content was hard, it was a distraction fighting nine mobs at a time, when it should have been a steady chain pull.