Yes, those “special” items were never really attainable even when the questing game progressed at a non-streamlined rate. My tailor put together the Robe of Power just for the looks, but otherwise, it was really a sidebar to the rest of the game.

I agree on the intended audience(s), but really don’t agree with the nature of the problem they’ve defined, or the solution that they came up with. But all the time and work they’ve put into this scheme – design, implementation, testing, feedback – is wasteful when all they could do is provide the equivalent to a big red button labeled “lol skill up yo” and put some sort of premium on it. Done and done. And then they could go work on something that looked more like a game.

OR the audience is that 1%er theorycrafter who has figured out that profession X had a 0.02% higher DPS potention so they want to drop their current profession and go with profession X (until the next patch when profession Y will triumph.. and then they’ll change to Y).

Or the audience is the casual player who has managed to get their toon all the way up to 90.. but never bothered with a profession (since they seem like a silly waste of time while you’re leveling) and is intimidated by going back to the old world (or buying stuff off the AH) to level it now.

They’re not eliminating the old methods of leveling a profession.

You’re right that they’re not fixing the inherient uselessness/boringness of the professions themselves. They’re not making it fun/useful/exciting to level professions.

What I found, way back in the day.. when I had a hunter who took Leatherworking, was that by the time I could get the special leather to make the new armor the profession had available to me, I had already quested up better armor. ADD TO THAT! that whole thing where my toon suddenly went from wearing leather to being able to wear mail.. caught my by surprise.. and I was pissed that I had “taken the wrong profession” and stopped leveling it at that point.

Essentially Blizz has boiled the professions down to pointless grinds to get to max level so you can make the 1-2 special things you need for raiding (spell thread, shoulder enchant, etc). Which ironically you could make the same statement about leveling.

In summary.. I agree with you that I wish they’d improved the professions in general. But I’m enough of a realist to see the writing on the wall.. and sell off all my profession mats NOW rather then waiting for Blizz to release the shortcut to all the professions.

Nibs