I should mention, the wanding was to regen mana through Judgement of Wisdom. Heck, I remember the second fight in Ruins of AQ with the waves of minibosses, just before the last boss the call came out to STOP DPS NOW so the healers could all wand the guy to regen mana back to full before the last wave with the boss. xD

So much of those thirty minute fights was "Wait, now we need to sit here and wand to regen mana... healers and DPS casters."

Vanilla had all sorts of wonky mechanics (relative to today's raiding environment). If you remained far enough away, you could remain out of combat. Some players were kept out of combat permanently to resurrect fallen raiders. Hunters could feign death to drop out of combat and then resurrect players with Goblin Jumper Cables. I seem to even recall that players could get out of combat to drink at times before rejoining battle.

Raid encounters then were considered more like long-form events, rather than the intense sprint fights that they are now. Decision-making now is all tactical where you have to make good snap judgements. Back then, decision-making was all strategic and very few crucial snap judgement decisions needed to be made.

That was all before my time. I have heard of groups doing the same thing though back in the good 'ole days of Vanilla.

yea, the 5 second rule...