Originally Posted by
Xuvial
I can anticipate things just fine, addons can't tell you what cooldown that Rogue is going to blow next - but addons CAN show me that the Rogue has roughly 1.6 seconds left on Cloak and I can start casting Polymorph so it lands right as Cloak ends. WoW is designed in a way where addons greatly enhance your experience and even the best of the best PvP/PvE'ers take advantage of them.
Granted, if I was 2800 rated and unbeatable then I would most likely disable everything to make things a challenge for me. Hell I would start playing WoW with a joystick because I was so bored from my awesome skill.
But until I reach that level, I'm going to take all the help from my UI I can get. The game is designed in a way where addons are very helpful - they don't play the game for you (you make it sound that way), but they are extremely useful in PvP and PvE.
Ask any competitive Arena PvP'er who played without Arena Frames (e.g. Gladius) before Blizzard implemented their own frames. Ask any competetive healer (or raider for that matter) who didn't use Raid Frame addons, as a healer you would be called retarded if you didn't have Grid or Healbot. How's that for a "challenge"?
Back on topic, I can only hope that GW2 picks up on an efficient UI where many games have fallen short.