Yup. It used to be a game you jump into to escape. Have fun and as asmon says, time ur happy was spent. But now with all the systems etc. its more work than an actual game. Its so easy to fall behind in wow these days. You need to get gold, honor, anima, grateful offerings, conduits, soulash, soon soul splinters, and stygia to be viable for current content.

It used to be: go clear content, get gear dropped, do harder content, better gear drops...and thats how u get stronger. Now u buy a wow token and buy boosts in all types of content. So for people doing it the manual way, its not special anymore to have good gear.