Awesome story. What you stated I think had two different weights to it: 1) vanilla content 2) guild play. I also believe that the guild play made your experience about 98% of what it was. Most of my experiences post WotLK has seen people move away from close guild play as it is unnecessary. LFR, pugging etc. In vanilla, there was no room for that. You needed 40 people to execute their task or it's a wipe. Those events build relationships like you said and it required continuity from everyone. I'm glad it can still happen. Heck, I might login to a vanilla server in the next few months and try it out.