http://warpprism.com/ All the streams, all the time, always. That's all.

I don't know how many MMOs you've played, but I'd like to address some of these points.

'Pure grinding' - you can level up through pvp, questing, or dungeons, and currently can get a 35% increase in experience gained, meaning that you can fly through 'old content.

'No character customization' - Well, yeah, aside from facial expressions, skin color, and a haircut, you're right, they're just cookie-cutter clones.

'Uninteresting classes that are all the same' - Here, I have to wonder what your actual experience is, and how long you played. The classes may be the same at 10, but certainly aren't once you get into levelling, or run dungeons, and especially not when you're raiding. Playing a tank is obvious a gigantic difference from playing a healer - but even within classes themselves, there's a huge difference in playstyle between a mage and a warlock, or a rogue and a ret (DPS) paladin.

If nothing else, the fact that all of the classes in WoW have different trees, different abilities, and should be played (optimally) in different ways is something that's worthy of a lot of respect, in my opinion. Granted, if you only care about pressing one or two buttons, they probably don't feel different. But if for anyone that played the game and experienced some of the end-game content, I think it's a pretty laughable statement on face.

'Poor graphics' - I think there's a very deliberate art style expressed here, one that's cartoony but not overly so. But if it's not your cup of tea, sure, I suppose that could be considered poor.

I'm not quite sure what an 'old-school' feel is, and I don't deny that there isn't that much RPing going on in servers, though it can still be found (and on the forums too!).

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Fundamentally, I think Blizzard did to MMOs the same thing they did with RTSs with Starcraft and hack-and-slash RPGs with Diablo - they took a system, and polished it until it was the best offering on the market. Is it perfect? No. But within the confines of this system, they have always walked the fine line between atrophy through lack of change and driving your players away through too much (SW:G, anyone?). And they're still polishing it, still iterating and getting feedback on class distinctions and balance and ways to make challenges both accessible and, well, challenging.

Granted, people should always be looking beyond the system, and games like EVE Online and Guild Wars are fascinating and contribute to the future of the industry. But that doesn't make what WoW did any less great.

Wait, wait. What you're saying is that simply because Google has not released a Chrome for Linux, you wouldn't recommend it? Isn't that both blatantly incompetent? The software should be judged based on its own merits, not whether it runs on whatever choice of system you personally operate on; and if you're really a responsible recommender, you will take time to figure out what's best for the people that you are recommending software to.