all that the OP listed happened (to me at least) more often in WotLK icc Pugs okay there are more AFK´ers but if you do it 2-3 days after ID reset you got lets say 75% good grps and get that stuff done fast for example last weeks durumu was down before the first beam and the last 2 wings (queued again with the same group) went down in 30 minutes
but maybe im just lucky with my groups
edit: OT LFR brought me back to raiding! i really liked ToT and wanted to see how the bosses are on normal and (hopefully next week. lei shen tonight!) heroic. my guild is pretty casual but the best thing of being in a raiding guild is the people (if they are not total jerks got that too a few times and that drove me away from raiding) youre raiding with, the social interaction and thats what i missed the most i suppose