Vanilla was awesome. Purples were true "epics."
level 60 was a true achievement. Heck, making it through stv was the puberty of leveling your toon. That's when your ba**s dropped and you became a man, and your reward was an expensive 60% mount!
Raiding was the real deal. Getting 40 ppl to be in one spot atthe same time?! Let alone coordinating that mess?!
I couldn't raid so I went the pvp route. I was a casual pvp'er. Next thing you know I was lieutenant general. So I went for it during summer vacation, played 16 hrs every day, and 6 months after "grunt" I was the only high warlord hunter ever on my server. I was king of kings.
HOOOOOOOWWWWEVER, all that which made vanilla great also made it horrible. There a reason why it's not like that anymore. That pvp grind made me HATE wow. Specially when 5 months later
2.0 went live and every scrub was farming my gear. And I didn't have xrealm q's. My av wait was 2 hrs!
That level 60 grind was HORRIBLE. I would play for 5 hours and barely get half a level.
Raiding.....FAAAAAK, 40 ppl?! how long do you think it takes to gear up a raid when people get two t1 pieces and dot raid for 3 weeks so you have to fill that spot with a newb with blues and greens.
There's a reason why vanilla is only in our memories.