Players haven't gotten better they just feel more entiled to get epic gear and walk thru "heroics" and raids. If you don't believe me wipe on a trash pull on LFD or LFR and see how many drop. Another reason for the ease of heroics and raids these days are while we have 10 classes at 85 there are really only 3 tank, heal, and DPS. What I miss about Vanilla and TBC is the since of accomplishment you got from attunement quests and rep grinds(for more than just vanity items). Just getting 40 people on the same page and the right 5 classes in each group to get the right buffs. My guildies and I would have noob tests before we even started a dungeon about simple things like ok lock who do you SS?(cookies for everyone who gets this right or even knows what I'm talking about). We need to know that you knew your class.
For every good improvement we lose something. Yes old attunements sucked, but if you had it you knew what to do.
One last thing Blizz give shammies some love where is our legendary weapon? Forgotten but us Shammies are used to that.