I have never been part of a guild that had more than 10 accounts attached to it. Yet, I have been in every raid Blizz has thrown at us during the appropriate times. Even Naxx(didn't complete it before TBC, but was in it). And especially during 40 man raiding the rule was you had to be in a large raiding guild or you couldn't raid. My wife and our friends choose to raid on our schedule, not on those of a larger raiding guild. We find out who the smaller raiding guilds are and form alliances, if you will, with them. We fill in when people are missing if we want to or on alt nights, and have managed to see everything.
Now, how I feel about the nerf to the guild xp system. Before the nerf three active players were hitting the cap daily. The same with those with 40-500 active members. Did they do anything more than us? No they had more numbers and I'm sure individual contributions were less than ours. Since the nerf, we may get 25% to the cap. Why should we have to wait longer than the bigger groups when in actuality, we are contributing more as individuals (put in more effort, for the elitists, for less rewards)? The xp nerf should be rescinded giving smaller guilds a fighting shot at keeping pace.
Let's say in a month or two we want to expand and do our own 10 raiding or rated BGs. We will be level 5-7 trying to compete against level 25 guilds. Most of the sheeple in WoW will want the instant rewards and pretty much ignore us. Sound fun? Fair? Not really. Time will tell, but I have a feeling things will slide closer to the LK model or a large % of the player base will leave. We plan on staying regardless. But considering Activision ultimately calls the shots, Mr. Kotick will not put up with a decent subscription decline if it ever happens.