someone who actually knows what they are talking about!Not what this guy said....
First off 90% of the people who did the cloak through LFR and don't think it was a cop out probably would not have been able to kill Illidan much less get to BT when it required attunement.
So let's look at the glaives the day they were available and the work required for it:
First off you needed to attune to Kara. Why? That will come later. Kara attunement required 3 quests in dungeons. Not hard but still more work that the first quests of the cloak quest line.
Ok so you got to Kara now your guild needs to progress through Kara to gear up of course. Once that happens you need to gain rep with Violet Eye and do the quest line to be able to summon Nightbane for your guild. In order to do that you need to do Heroic Shattered Halls and Heroic Sethekk Halls which were both harder than any scenario you did for this cloak. Inb4 people claim they were easy when in truth they are thinking about normal mode not heroic when in heroic the rogues in the final corridor could 2 shot your clothies.
So you've killed Nightbane for the Blazing Signet he drops. Why? Because you need Vashj's vial. Well hold on you can't get into SSC still.... that's right you need to kill Gruul for his signet and have ventured twice into heroic slave pens.
So Gruul is dead and now your guild has to progress through SSC. You finally kill Vashj and get her vial yay! Wait a second.... there's 2 vials..... that's right you need to get into Tempest Keep and get Kael's vial. Hold on I think there's a problem with that..... another attunement.
To get into TK you needed to do a 30 quest long chain that required a group in many parts which culminated in 3 quests in what are the 4 hardest BC heroics(short of BM maybe) which in doing these 3 quests you actually made the heroics harder with exception of the 2 items from SV and SL. Once you did all of that you had to kill Magtheridon.
Yay you're in TK. Now you have to get to Kael and kill him for his vial. At least in progressing through TK you get 1 item you need in order to get into BT which drops off the first boss of TK.
So your guild finally killed Kael yay. You have your two vials..... ummm hold on the vials are for MH not BT...... That's right you need the phylactery from the lich in MH. Luckily he's a relatively easy kill and the first boss.
Well now you've killed Raz and you've killed A'lar. You can enter BT. Hmmmmm in order to pass Mother you need to have your guild in a high Shadow Res. Looks like while you farm for the hearts of darkness you need for the gear you can farm for gear from the bosses assuming your guild can down them. So you get SR up and you beat mother and you bit by bit after toiling get the bosses on farm. Oh yeah Illidan pre nerf was not a cake walk. You may be able to get a glaive or hell both can drop on your first kill, but who ever killed him in 1 attempt when it was relevant content? That's right Illidan outclassed most of today's bosses on heroic much less normal or LFR.
Do not give me that garbage that you worked any harder to get this welfare cloak than anyone did for glaives.
Oh and by the way there was no catch up gear until SWP was released.
I remain mystified by the comparisons of time on the cloak vs. anything from classic/bc. getting atiesh or glaives damn near required part-time job dedication to the game for who knows how long.