I keep seeing this excuse over and over as people try to defend this disastrous feature that should have never been implemented.
Yes, you can obviously progress through normals and heroics without setting foot in LFR, but that doesn't change the fact (let me say that again...fact) that it is still in the best interest of many raiders to do LFR. As a result, this is what happens: new content becomes stale entirely too quickly, people get burnt out because they repeatedly consume said content too fast on faceroll mode, and they ultimately either unsub out of boredom for good or maybe until a new patch. I've seen it happen to all of my friends, and the same thing goes for me. If anyone truly believes LFR has had a more positive than negative impact on the game, they are 100% delusional. WoW was more successful in Vanilla - WotLK not because it was newer, but because there was no such thing as LFR.
Then there's this one, "well, more support it than are against it." This is the most ignorant excuse of them all. Was there some survey conducted to get this information? If so, neither I nor anyone I know were asked for our opinions on the matter. So that's a rather bold and invalid claim to make without stating where the information is coming from. Maybe it should be more like this "well, more players on the forums support it than are against it." Which is obvious considering these players are the ones that provided the endless whining resulting in LFR in the first place, of course they are going to defend it to the death. I also find it ironic that these are mostly the same players who lead such busy and important lives that they can't possibly be bothered with a raiding guild, yet they somehow have hours on end to police the forums and flame any and every anti-LFR thread as soon as it comes to light.
My question is this: how about the millions of loyal players lost due to this obnoxious catering to forum whiners and a "casual" play style? You really think the majority of these players supported LFR? nope. So instead of staying true to the actual mmo crowd, Blizzard shifted their focus by trying (and failing) to implement a one-size-fits-all band aid to cater to those that will be whining on forums no matter what, until they are practically mailed epics with the highest ilvl in the game. Well guess what, that doesn't work and subscription numbers show it. I can't speak for everyone but I know my guild and I didn't quit because the game is old. We quit because the overall experience of the game is no where near what it used to be. A game where the worst player imaginable can defeat all of the bosses while being afk and come back to possibly find epic rewards in their bags. If that kind of playstyle is anyone's idea of a fun, I feel embarrassed for them. Journey? gone. Incentive? gone. End of story. Kind of a pathetic way to end the life cycle of what was once such a magical and epic mmo.
With flex raiding coming in 5.4, I can only hope that the devs and community get their heads out of the gutter and overhaul or abolish this poor excuse of a "raid" style. If not, then they deserve their failure.