I'm one of the most forgiving customers there is,

[LochnarITB]

And it is a determinant.  WoW, more than many other games, rewards the skilled and smart player as opposed to the twitchy player, like D2 did.  The only reason why you can't play a naked mage is because WoW isn't as easy as D1 and doesn't have the same design holes as D2.  If it had either of those flaws, I think the game would be worse off for it.  It isn't because skill doesn't matter.  I think anyone's bad experiences with pickup groups could agree with that.
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You are, of course, correct. I make no contention that I am skilled at writing my thoughts or debating the merit of them. This was also put together very quickly. I had been trying to describe what I was feeling for several days and Catlyn's post prompted me to try to put what I was thinking in writing, even if it was sure to be a rambling rant. When I say WoW, I tend to equate that with the WoW community where, to others, it equates to the game itself and its design. Also, a naked mage was a bad example taken to the extreme. I, too, would hope that a naked mage could not take the end game as it was all too easy to do in D1 (although I do intend to strip Lochnar down, at some point, and see what he can do). The Lurkers do tend to be a more analytical group. I see people linking greens for opinions and reading things like "that would be a great druid piece - they look for...". The WoW community seems to see the limited pool of blues and purples as the be all and end all of equipment choices. Thoughts such as "d00d that suxxors - get a <insert blue/purple here> instead" seem to be the norm. As witnessed by prices paid for them, blues and purples are valued far above greens of equal or better attributes. It's been said that a person is intelligent but people are stupid. :(