Actually, just to correct myself, while heroics are easily seen as part of progression, the real disconnect is that people refuse to see REGULAR mode 5-mans as part of progression. They certainly are. They are the same heroic prep tier as reputation, as intended by Blizzard.

It's not so much crying about the difficulty of the heroics. The crying is more about the PuG players who make the heroic experience miserable, instead of fun.

Oh no, I get that.  My point is it is, by and large, still "TOOO SOOOON!" (loved the KYL for today :) ) for the heroic dungeon finder.  Anyone queueing up with less than five of their good buddies, mutually invested in progression, signing on for come what may with good pals is pretty much asking for it right now.  

People are gaming the system with the gear in their bags, people don't know the strats, and aren't willing to be told them because "its only a 5-man", etc, etc.  The game is in the "working its magic" stage right now, and the weeds are still in the process of pulling themselves at this phase.  "L2Social" is enacting its own glorious cataclysm in the dungeon finder, so stay out!

In short, don't PUG.  It's too soon.

Anyone saying "but I HAVE to PUG" has bigger problems to tend to on their own guild/social/time management end that the dungeon finder can't, won't, and shouldn't fix for you.  Either way, it's still TOOO SOOON.

Unfortunately, the system was not setup very well and makes it very easy to "game" the system with out even realizing it. The system doesn't look at gear you have equipped right now or even the best gear you've ever equipped for a slot but actually looks at any gear you could have equipped. This leads to several possible way that a class could end up with a higher score than what they are actually wearing and I haven't found any in-game way of telling your currently equipped average i-level. I'm sure there are add-ins that could do it for you but I haven't bothered looking for one.

For example, I've been leveling as resto/elemental but was enhance/resto for most of wrath so I have picked up decent enhance gear as I get the chance since I may end up switching back. This has lead to several situations where I had higher level gear for enhance than elemental/resto and at first I didn't realize how this was affecting the ilevel score. When I did my first couple heroics I was probably 3 or 4 ilevel below the requirement in the gear I actually had equipped. Not because I was trying to game the system but because it just happened and I hadn't realized it.