No, it is true.
Blizzard created a situation where doing dailies felt mandatory to many players. They put gear that was of high value to many players, gear that was useful to reach the gear cap and fill in gaps, and they placed it behind a rep vendor. Players wanted the gear, players needed the gear so getting the rep was necessary. And because you can't control what drops, you need to get rep with them all.
And do so while the gear was of value.
Could you get by without the gear? Sure. But it was a bad idea to do so in many ways.
Personally, I still blame the problem on the largely unnecessary rep lock. Having so much useful gear behind so high a rep lock for so many factions all at the same time was not a good idea.
EJL