Blizzard's quality control is what keeps their games great... but it may be another nail in the coffin, as well. User-generated content can keep a niche of gamers happy and occupied -- or at the very least distracted -- and paying, with very little oversight by Blizzard... but in the current game, given their level of imposed control, the only source of content is the devs themselves. That means even more pressure on their design teams to churn out high-quality content quickly.

I do think they could split the difference, however. With the new guild system, guild banks are often overflowing with money -- it would be nice if the officers in a guild could create intra-guild contents or 'quests' using actual game systems rather than homebrew mods or pen-and-paper record keeping. Imagine if a guild officer could place phased NPCs in the world, visible only to players partaking in the guild quest, with actual quest items, some custom dialogue, etc, etc, ultimately rewarding a cash prize that comes out of the guild's coffers?

It would require work, restrictions, disclaimers ("this is a player-generated quest and may not be canon"), etc, but the option is there, and it would be more or less removed from the overall WoW storyline while still able to be parallel to it.

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