Uh, not so sure about that champ.....

The people getting and using the bonus experience are the ones who recruited their friends so I highly doubt they didn't have any experience with WoW beforehand.

Bonus XP applies for both, but if you've got a friend introducing you to the game you're already ahead, for the most part. The granted levels are for the recruiter, not the recruitee, so it's someone who already has an account. RAF people are generally ahead of the game knowledge-wise compared to a normal "huh, well I like elves..." person who just picks it up randomly in a store, so I don't see this as a bad thing, honestly.

It's pretty easy to just level by questing, never having to really "learn" your class. Figure out how to kill mobs, and you can get to 85. That's just a fact of life. Speed boosts like Recruit-A-Friend aren't going to make anything better or worse, you're just looking for something to blame.

Yes, doing fetch quests slower is the key to "learning your class." I think players who struggle to tank or heal in dungeons and raids (or optimize their DPS) probably didn't do their quests slowly enough. :)