TBC , WOTLK -before the release of Dungeon Finder terms of PVE/PVP, leveling and whole overall experience Vanila, game felt so rewarding once u got something , these days it takes u 1 week to finish whole content in wow, example 4 days ago i made warlock on deathwing , today im 4.8k gs without boes and finished all content , with joke playtime, in Vanila u just needed 12-14 days playtime to reach 60 on x1, and the raids were 40mans and dropped 2 items , so once item is obtained the feeling is totaly different its like you've won the lottery , ya know what i mean ?:D
And when people decide to donate/vote for an item they just skip the content and the enjoyment of receiving the item, and 1 thing that kinda stupid was the fact that Fos,Pos,Hor were giving Ulduar tier gear. This way you dont need to do naxx,uld,os,eoe,u can just str8 in rep farm icc reserve boes, get ring, go into fos pos hor farms, within 3-5 days you'll be 5k gs, if you are lucky with boes and you are able to sell them, u might even buy some 264 gear from crafting, pretty simple to gear in wotlk honest word, that's why is on my 3rd spot, but the raids are very very good, i mean the story behind ulduar and icc is mind blowing. Also my opinion on why wow failed after wotlk = Dungeon finder(released in 3.3.5) and Raid finder(released in 4.3.4).