Soooooo, this whole "one or the other," mentality is bothering me.

How about we get the best of both worlds. Introduce an AH, the primary hub for sales/purchases and keep the MW for additional storage, additional slots to sell items, reduced taxes for more premium/rare items. Basically, turn the MW into our Rolanberry fields (or whichever your XI server preffered pre-tax nuke) bazaars with a search function. That was, after all, part of the inspiration for the MWs.