So why Hardcore for me?

[MongoJerry]

D2 was a big game. I don't think a D3 full clear is much more than doing a full clear through Act II in D2.

Great post, but this statement really confused me, because I feel the complete opposite. I never rushed my character in D2 -- I always played through every act, including Act III -- and D3 feels so much longer (and richer) than D2 was. I think what might be giving the impression of shorter acts is that in D3, they are well broken down into sub-acts, and sometimes it's easy to forget about a whole sub-act until you get there.

For example, last night, we spent hours going through Act 2 and once we finshed off Zultan Kuhl's body, people expressed being tired and needing to go to bed. I said, well, let's get the black soulstone first, because that's a good stopping place -- thinking that that event was just coming up. Then, a second after saying that, I remembered that there were three more levels of dungeons to clear through before we got to that spot and recanted the idea.

And this doesn't take into account all of the side caves and events that occur in the middle of the maps that one could technically skip (much like you could skip them in D2) but are so worth doing in D3.