I hear you. But is that backed up by real evidence or is this just the naive "But Blizzard made me happy when I was young. They wouldn't possibly change for worse" feeling, mostly created by the common theme of holding ones past in favor?

It was better, back then, right? Now - was it? Or was there no way to pull off a restricted, overpriced release at that time and no way to go for the "online only" approach without broadband? Or was it impossible to create this amount of hype with TV commercials for your next big thing (tm) everywhere without having World of Warcraft to back you up?

What about "Money corrupts"? How much is WoW bringing in these days?