whats wrong with wow?

[Abriael]

So what's the assertion here then? That because the game is simple to get into and progress all the way to the level cap, it's of poor design and quality? We're going to ignore the parts where genuine mastery and quality of play are required to be successful (eg. hard mode raiding and high-rated PvP)?

Lol at "genuine mastery" that's some "genuine" hyperbole. If you think people that do high end raiding in wow are "genuine masters" i wonder what you think of the people that execute perfect drifting shows on Gran Turismo 5, or even harder racing sims.
Those parts come too late in the game to be any influential on the composition of the wow community, or can be completely ignored (pvp).

You seem to have a penchant to warping what people say. I never said that is "poor quality" design (the poor quality is elsewhere, the ridiculous storylines and characters, the laughable art direction, and so forth), but it does ensure that the game is popular regardless of quality.
It's actually a very smart design choice to grab the target Blizzard wants and more money. Unfortunately it comes with drawbacks, primarily the extremely poor quality of the community, but that impacts only a percentage of the players, for sure not Blizzard.

I mean, what I'm taking from all of this, particularly with this sentence--"No matter if you're a third grader or a soccer mom that has trouble even with the wii"--is that FF gamers are akin to nobles and are expressing their disdain for the peasantry, as if they're somehow better than them. Is that your position?

You're the one making a "wow vs FFXI" comparison. I'm talking only about wow.
Many other games on the market are much more selective early on with their target. This means that their community will inevitably benefit from an higher percentage of players that are actually prepared to interact with an online community, as third graders and similar examples simply arent, most of the time. And they get frustrated and pushed away by mechanics that they don't have the patience to cope with.