I will definitely agree with you about BC having a higher skill level required. I can remember walking into the Sunwell as a decently geared 80, not full raid gear, but good enough to get into ICC regular. We went with about 25 level 80s and maybe 10 level 70's. Begining was a face roll through mobs.

Gear never compensates for required mechanics. A level 80 tank mind controlled will decimate a raid as easily as a 70. A few hours later I had to leave, when I got home a few hours after that they were still at it, but had made it to the end. I got in on the final fight. Once everyone followed the strat it was simple to do with the fire power we had. But I will definitely conceed that back at level cap it was probably extremely difficult. But have you been up in that area, well prior to people farming transmog gear, its a ghost town. Possibly from the horror stories that were told to those of us that never saw the Heroic Dungeons and raids prior to any nerfs, maybe because we have so much more to do now than you had back then. I would rather do Archeology than spend 3-4 hours in a heroic dungeon.