I'm not sure we REALLY agree here... maybe only on the surface.
First, BC hit 10 million subscribers at around the release of Sunwell content. In WotLK it peaked at 12 million.
So you are selectively throwing out WotLK and making it irrelevant even though it hit 12 million at the END of the expansion after Ruby Sanctum was released which... very few people actually played. Which was 8 months AFTER the release of ICC and this was when I personally started to see friends and guildmates leave the game because no new content had been added in so long and there just wasn't anything left for them to do.
So your conclusion is/was that WotLK began a trend of dumbing down the game, and that reduction in complexity was the reason for the decline in subs... I think it is the complete opposite.
I should qualify this by saying that I have been playing since Vanilla, and have almost been on the moderate-hardcore in the amount of time that I play (but not necessarily a hardcore raider as it does not appeal and my availability does not work well with it).
My reason for saying that we disagree is that things have become WAAAAY more complicated. Raid mechanics are far more complex than anything we saw in BC or in Vanilla. There is so much going on different phases, targets, roles.
The accessibility of WotLK is what helped wow to peak. Separate lock out for 10 and 25 man, mean you could raid twice as much. Moving from 10 mans to 25 mans was a simpler transition and progression (despite being outside the realm of intended development).
5 mans being a 15-30min endeavor, with decent upgrades at the end. Apropriate amount of dailies and rewards that were SEPARATE from any other content.
In CATA it was the complete opposite, 5 mans were long drawn out and provide ghetto worthless rewards. Raids had a higher gear threshold to even participate in and thus made initially participating in them more difficult (not difficult themselves necessarily but brought back the importance of being properly geared to contribute or bring the group down) not only that while attempting to limit the number of buttons required to push made it much more important to really bring your A-game and be super focused on rotation and resource management, rather than just mindlessly face rolling.
MoP had the right IDEA in the different type of content available to players, but failed in making it either required... or semi required, and poor rewards for content.
MMOs live and die by the rewards provided to its participants.
What they have done (from my perspective) is limit the amount of rewards EXCEPT when doing certain specific content. Thus encouraging you to participate in that content... unless of course you don't like that content
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
then you can go fuck yourself