I often come across numerous threads where people's opinion of WTLK being very casual seems to overshadow how casual the game really is in Mists of Pandaria.
The common complaint being that "Epics" were not epics any more. And that everyone had access to epics. However, I can't seem to see how that is any different currently. In fact I can only see how worse of we are. I mean at least during WTLK only the last boss in a heroic dropped epic gear, and people didn't have easy access to raid weapons or drops without actually making a considerable effort. However, that is simply taken out of the game by what we now have in LFR. That means everyone has a chance of getting a drop for practically no effort.
4.3 was quite annoying cause you had so many melee classes that were rolling around with LFR Gurth's and Dual Wielding Gurths in Random BGs. It left me to wonder how many would actually be running with any of the weapons that dropped from normal LK during WTLK? Even now you have a bunch of classes running around with LFR raid weapons.
Sure raiding was easier than it ever was and more open to the masses but it had the perfect balance. You had hardcore content for those that were willing to challenge themselves and normal raids that were challenging enough for the normal folk. When you killed LK on Normal Mode, you "cleared" the content. Sure you could push ahead on hardcore but that was only a bonus. Even Blizzard accepted that and quite frankly agreed that "heroic" mode was for more of a challenge. However, now you are given 3 modes, and Blizzard expects you to get through all 3 modes there by resulting in constant nerfs to content as they would like everyone to see the content on all 3 difficulties. How is this better to what we have in WTLK?
Moving on in 5.2 we actually have a complete over haul to how PVP weapons and gear can be acquired. So now even random LegolassXXXWTFXXX can farm his T2 weapon by simply popping all his CDs in 2 mins fights in 2 v 2 and get his Elite gear by the time the next season starts with no restrictions. It doesn't get any casual than this.
A lot of people complained about the dungeons being nothing more than an AOEfest. But that was only cause most of the dungeons were tuned for level 80s in ilevel 187-200 gear. It became a complete AOEfest when everyone was geared to the max in 232 +. However, dungeoning was actually fun to what we have now. The very first dungeon in Mists has hardly and its basically from one boss to another. The fights are uninteresting and bland.
In Mists we now have dailies giving Valor Points which were only reserved for killing raid bosses and completing a heroic dungeon. Isn't that very casual from what we had during WTLK?
However, the introduction of other elements like "farmville" and "pokemon" battles in WoW only show how Casual the game has gotten in Mists compared to what we had in WoW and still people prefer to praise Mists but consider WTLK to be a game for the "casuals".