This is the flaw in a lot of people's thinking. Yes, you pay to log on, but as a consumer you're not supposed to TRY and get yourself boned. You're not supposed to bend over and say "here mega-corporation, have your way with me!". You want good value for your money, not for the company to nickle and dime you by putting development time towards things you have to pay extra for instead of towards the things your expensive sub fee is paying for.
And to those ignorant individuals who don't realize 15 bucks a month is a lot of money for a video game, go look on Steam right now, see how much you can get for that same 15bucks. With the money you spend just to be able to log into WoW for a year (not including buying hte game, expansions, or the at times necessary account services), you could buy an entire library of games right now. If you want to argue that WoW and it's measly few patches a year has more content, and content of higher quality, then an entire library of games of your choice from Steam, then you're so poorly informed that you're not even qualified for this simple discussion.
This isn't a game that's struggling to get by, so stop justifying the company making the game a worse deal for you.