They 'added' the store, not replaced it with anything we already had. So no.
I agree most of the paid services are totally optional (I disagree on char transfer, because when I moved to a full realm, everything became better so it is a clear advantage). I want to make a point however that lvl 90 char boosting can actually be an advantage over other players in regard of professions and making gold. Of course very few people will boost 3,4+ characters only for professions, but it is a possibility.
The "you complainers" is the generic aimed at people who are crying that Blizzard is charging for leveling.
As to the concept I outlined putting value to my time when I am enjoying myself. It is a fairly common way to look at time, and if you can look at you time has always having a dollar value it changes the way you look at each activity, ie watching 3 Harry Potter films back to back, if you did it because someone else was having fun and you didn't enjoy that time, essentially you gave that person $63 of your time. Now if you choose to spend that time yourself, that was the cost of the films and your time, the next question becomes did you get ~$85 dollars worth of entertainment. I would say you did if you were happy afterwards.
Leveling use to be worth the time spent because I enjoyed it, sadly after 5 play-troughs I tend to feel my time is best spent elsewhere. Since the leveling game is no longer interesting and is a waste of my time, and I can put a value on that time.
If someone wants to pay $240 (1.25 years' worth of subs) to boost four characters to max level I'd say they're entitled to max professions. I have a bunch of alts that I manually levelled in order to cover all professions, and in all honesty I can say I spent far less time doing that than I did on the legendary cape quests for a single character. Also it's not like professions would give a huge advantage. Each guild usually has several max level crafters for any given profession, and from the sound of it WoD is going to reduce the role that professions play even further.
Well there are some who claim to be busy and have a life, but display horrible social skills mixed with strong bias and hatred for others not like them and non-team oriented behavior. There seems to be a number of people who play WoW that dont seem like someone I would want to work with or get serviced by, but such is the work force as is.
people that complain about WoW prices must have never wasted $100 at a bar. I need to check myself before I wreck myself.
as a new player to WoW and a college student, I too agree that the 13 a month isn't too much to ask!