What keeps you playing ?

[Shurrikhan]

...how do you justify these hours you lost?

How does any gamer, hardcore or otherwise, justify the hours spent on a game that falls into obsoletion, let alone a raid the gear from which doesn't exclusively best aid one's attempts at a further raid? Because it was fun at the time. Or at least fun enough to warrant playing it over doing something else.

On topic:
I play because I largely enjoy the combat here much more than in most other MMOs. I can spend hours at a time on a striking dummy trying to perfect a rotation, and enjoy when a fight forces me to make a compromise and my figuring out how best to make it.

Aside from that, I play in hopes that we'll eventually see more interesting mechanics and undermechanics to the game, along with certain reasonable QoL features.

In part, I also play that I have the right to voice my opinion on the game's progression, as small a drop in the barrel as it may be.