High materials cost for flasks?

[Jakros]

Does anyone else feel the amount of herbs it takes to make flasks is a bit high? I feel like I farm herbs for ages, and they only end up making 4 or 5 flasks. I was looking back at Wrath flasks and they seem relatively cheap in comparison. I guess I also feel quite limited in that most of the herbs I need can only be found in one area (if we consider Vash one 'zone').

Does anyone know why the mats cost seems to be higher? Is it just to make the leveling process slower or some other reason I've not thought of? I don't know if BC flask mats were high and I'm just used to Wrath or something, but looking back at my recipes they don't look too bad to me.

It just seems strange to me I guess :P I'm not very good at making gold (and I'm just not interested in the economics side of the game. I really avoid it as much as possible), so I tend to farm everything, and I guess I just worry I'll be spending my life farming enough herbs to keep up with the amount I raid.

Feel free to enlighten me if you have any answers Or tell me I'm mad and mats are fine

[Arcangnom]

Yes, the mats are a lot more "expensive" if you count the time it takes to farm them, although a bit less random. Using the caster flask as an example, you would need 10 herbs and 1 rare herb in wotlk to make 2 flasks, in cataclysm you need 48 herbs and 12 volatile life to make 2 flasks.
The volatile life is arguably "free", since you usually get 12 for every 48 herbs, but in comparison to wotlk you lose out on gold here because eternal life could be sold for a decent price on the AH.
However, herb nodes give a bit more herbs in cataclysm. You get 2-5 herbs per node now, but I really don't know if there is an even distribution on the different outcomes. I rarely pay attention to how many I pick up, but I can't recall having seen a 5-herb pickup during my 30~ herb pickups on my alt yet. I have seen 4 though.

[Jakros]

Ohh good point, I forgot entirely about Frost Lotuses (duh, lol). That does make a bit more sense now.

In a way herbing feels a bit less "exciting". Okay, it was never really exciting, but when I got a lotus I was like, Hell yeah! Especially if I was racing someone to a herb or was going to leave it (since I had SO much Icethorn), but at the last second decided to take it, and viola a lotus. Of course that's looking back through rose tinted lenses, and I'm sure many times I went, FFS where's my lotus. I guess it's a bit better without them - their random element was quite frustrating.

I guess that's /thread :P Or maybe there can be some debate - do you prefer flasks to cost a Lotus or more herbs?