I don't know which game were you playing in these "many many years".. MoP changes came in September 2012. Before that Cata had high value for mastery, dodge, parry to complete the table coverage for incoming hits. Even now it feels nice when I see streaks of dodges and parries (damn useful on many incoming hits = packs of adds). Too bad magic damage doesn't care about dodge, parry, block or ShOtR's
melee damage reduction.
And since we're in 2013, my math can't convince me that ~6 months stand for those "many many years" you talk about.