the way i see it, linear attunement will nerfed and it will be replaced with a rep/hand-in based attunement... the reasons are quite simple...

here's an analogy of linear attunement: let's say you'd like to join a guild called Nihilum... besides the fact that you'd clearly have to have made the correct faction choice, you will also have to walk the walk and talk the talk of nihilum... by this i mean you'll be needing the gear and the keys to match their current progress... consequently you'd also have the experience needed to join them on their happy quest of martyrdom... so, unless you have done the linear progression described above, you will not be able to join them, sorry.

killing nightbane and gruul to get into SSC is easy enough... but will your guild still be running gruul's and kara for T4 and trash epics once they are looking at SSC, TK:TE and Mt Hyjal? (people used to grind strat/scholo for months to get gear..., i wonder why things have changed)

getting the key for TK is another attunement that is bound to fail... slay the lord of Magtheridon's Lair - but not before doing every lvl 70 instance in heroic mode and there are four of these... now, far from being impossible, the average player will spend at least 5 hours in each instance and spend enough to require about half of that in grinding, lets call it 1 day /played just to get those four done...

ok, these are 5 man instances and dont require a whole guild to get done but who will be running these instances in 6 months time? they are a solid 2 hour effort for a good team and not many people i know are gonna drag noobs through them just to get them attuned...

ye ye ye i hear ya..., if they need the members guilds will help... well..., news flash... guilds will find it a real struggle to get this done... since guilds are now smaller there is a huge problem getting the little tasks done... our newer members take ages to get the kara chain done because most of us are spending time on heroics and kara/gruuls and just cba to do yet another SV/arc/SL run... newbs need to resort to the wtfàgony of pugs, oh dear me.

and that's the whole point really..., the same that applies to getting a simple karazhan key now, will apply to all other linear attunements in the future for peeps that are not up to date with the current guild progress... guild applications will require an ever growing list of hard-to-get attunements hence the analogy with getting into Nihilum.

newcommers to the game will not be able to join their friends endgame before their first 6 month subscription runs out and they will just quit

i understand the point of linear attunement is to have people playing characters capably and in a way i am greatful that there will be fewer fools playing at endgame level but c'mon... there aint gonna be enough of them to pay... and bliz does rely on complete amateurs for their daily bread.

i could be wrong however

How many threads have we now seen along the lines of "X will be the down fall of WoW"?

I actually fail to see how this is constructive or even polite, towards Blizzard.

I'm assuming whoever posts these things is simply looking to buff their text by adding dramatic flair with an "outrageous" title. A bit like tabloids and newspapers I guess :)

Remember, be constructive. No one wants to listen to a QQ, except maybe the people who make tissues.