@Borick

I really like your points, and this starts tickling the question of who should change, the game or the players.

I enjoy football. I like watching it and I used to play in high school. I am mildly athletic, but not a physically near perfect specimen you see in the NFL. I am not demanding that the game of football be changed so that I can fully enjoy it's intricacies at the highest level.

Wow is a videogame. It's a choice. If the game is too hard, then you might want to just play a different game. I don't like first person shooters, or sports games, but love RPG's, fighting games, and WoW. So that's what I play.

Call of Duty is the most popular FPS franchise ever and lots of my friends play it, chat online while hanging out and eternally playing CoD, just like I do with other friends and WoW. I don't DEMAND that call of duty change so that I may socialize in that medium... that's just stupid. Why should WoW have to?

You are absolutely right. The content outside of raiding is fluffy and grindy at best. I only enjoy the game when I'm clearing challenging raiding content for the first time. I especially loved killing Yogg and Sinestra for the first time (we're still working on H rag).

This is not for everyone. Raiding just simply is not for everyone, be it the level of person to person interaction you desire, or the process of learning the many mechanics of an encounter,or simply mastering your role in the raid.

(Un)Fortunately WoW has become the most popular MMO of it's time, and because of this, Blizzard is making the (financially sound) decision to (attempt to) adapt the game to the market/playerbase. Blizzard has tried to add lots of content to appeal to non raiders, but to me, most of it is just not engaging.

The last sad truth is that there is just no other social medium like WoW, but I'm afraid to say, if you haven't liked raiding for this expansion or last (or ever) maybe it's time to find a new game / passtime.

Cheers.