While I too remember BC raiding fondly and still think Karazhan was one of the best designed instanced in the game. There's a whole lot more I remember about BC raiding that I think a lot of people overlook. I remember having to fight to constantly fill a 25 man roster so we could actually raid that night, and I remember having to deal with the 5 or so bad raiders that would constantly wipe the raid or not let us meet enrage timers (but without their bodies we wouldn't be able to even raid; see the previous point), I remember the crazy methods we'd have to use to make progression like asking/forcing people to take leatherworking (drums) and stacking shaman and warlocks and all the tensions that would create (see the previous point). I would hazard to guess that these were budens constantly experienced by most raiding guilds in the game if they wanted to see the next boss killed and for even more guilds it signified an end to the game's content because they couldn't shoulder that burden.

We remember the fond and sweep the hassle under the carpet, and if you truly feel like you enjoyed that game more back then it probably has more to do with the group you played with vs. the group you play with now which has a much higher impact on how fun the game is then the actual content in most cases. But if you're able to honestly assess the game, including all the bad with the good, I think you'll find that Cat > Wrath > TBC >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Vanilla.

In Vanilla you couldn't play the raiding game unless you were in an elite raiding guild (unless you enjoyed running MC forever)

In TBC you couldn't play unless you played select blessed classes (tanks with shield block and fear countering, healers with bloodlust, and warlocks and rogues that made other DPS cry)

In Wrath you felt the constant pressure to field a 25 man roster and all the drama and grief that comes with that or else you felt like you weren't playing the real game (10 man raiding not real raiding).

There's still issues now, but look at all the hassle that blizzard's taken off the shoulders of the majority of their customers, and that's why firelands is more fun than icecrown and sunwell combined.

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