whats wrong with wow?

[Rhianu]

They most definitely give players that make an extensive use of them a clear advantage over people that don't. So if they aren't a cheat they get very near to it.

Wrong. Just because something gives an advantage, that doesn't automatically mean it's a cheat. In order for anything to qualify as a cheat, it has to give an advantage AND be against the rules. By your logic, you could say that playing a BLM in FFXI was cheating because it gave you an advantage over some of the underpowered jobs, like PUP or DRG.

The main negative point with addons is that their existance forces the developer to design encounters taking in account that they will be used, creating a further divide with people that don't use them. The problem has been mitigated by the ban on commercial addons, but it still remains as an underlying problem in encounter design.

That's actually a GOOD thing. Thanks to addons, Blizzard has had to alter the type of battle tactics they use in designing enemy encounters, which has resulted in deeper strategies being implemented into the fights.

But you don't ever need any addons to win a boss fight (although some guild leaders will try to insist that you do). No, the truth is that if you're good enough, you can do everything with just the default interface if you really want to.