Dumptruk:
Except the first group of players goes out and makes UI mods. And these UI mods they create to make their raiding easier get distributed. There become enough of them to the point that a whole site is dedicated to it. In fact,a number of sites. WoWinterface, Curse. Then you throw in the fact that these guys are so hardcore that they live, eat, breathe wow. They want to share what they know with others. MMO-Champion is born. EJ's forums increase in attendance. Then you've got the guys that outside of WoW make videos about WoW, create their own stories. Hype is created. Lots and lots of hype.
Do you think any of this would have been created by your typical "I have only enough time to play 1 hour a night between work and family?" types of people? Absolutely not. But these people would probably not have started WoW in the first place or stuck with it so long without watching the videos created by others, and then downloading the UI mods created by yet other people.
Once the "top" falls apart. Once they move on to other games, the "bottom rung" moves on.
In other markets, the people I described here as the more hardcore are known as "early adopters". People use Macs because of "early adopters" drumming up support. Early adopters are what caused Windows Vista to fail in the marketplace.
These people that you say "have no life" really do provide a valuable resource to what it is you're doing, no matter what you do. Alienating them otherwise is a dumb idea.