Allison,

I think you've actually hit on a larger issue than just the RDF and tanking issues. I think you've hit on the (lack of) community issues that are currently plaguing WoW.

I've been playing for a while now and have enjoyed almost every class and role and playing to end game content and PvP (just can't get into Priest / Warlock for some reason, but I've got plenty of experience with the rest), and I've seen a lot of changes as many of the wow.joystiq.com readers have. I remember when the RDF came out that it was a great convenience, but I also noted these anonymity issues you have brought up almost immediately. But the convenience and the rewards were nice enough I didn't mind the anonymity problem so much.

By the time Cataclysm came out, I have to say that I've severely curtailed my tanking. If I take my DK, Pally, Warrior, or Bear into a random heroic, I almost always queue as DPS and go herb or dig or mine while waiting for the queue. If I land a good tank, awesome, I DPS (or heal). If I land a terrible tank, I try to offer advice, help them do their job, and in a last resort, I change specs and tank instead. Even with that I've almost stopped doing heroics altogether simply because I've run into so many bad experiences (most of which are rude players).

My point here is that while RDF and the same for battlegrounds have been great convenience tools, perhaps the problem is not with the tool, but with the fact that it reaches across server boundaries? Anonymity (as most who have used the internet know) breeds rude / bad behavior. Perhaps limiting the RDF to your server (or offering that as an option when you queue) would be a nice solution. I'd gladly wait another 5-10 minutes (or more) to get someone from my server. I think it would help bring that sense of community that was so intrinsic in the early days of WoW that has been slowly dying off since 3.3.

There may be other / better solutions (player rating perhaps?) that may allow for cross-server use and still work out well, but I don't think that just offering tanks more loot / gear is going to bring them back to the queues. It certainly won't for me.