Exactly. I hate to use WoW as a reference as they're pretty different games but when BC came out I spent nearly a month farming ore to craft BS gear, prospect for gems to gem that gear, farmed heroics and so forth. I spent MONTHS farming materials and gear so I could progress. So I'm not stranger to spending entire weekends in front of my PC in the name of progress.
The thing is that when I was doing that gear farming I was actually seeing stuff I or someone else could use so I could see my character improving. In D3 the only stat that's increasing on my DH is my gold counter.