Why do long time players play the game so differently?

[SeiyaSoiya]

If those are the things you like, more power to you. Not everyone likes those things. Some of us are older and have done that drill decades ago other in other MMOs. It really just comes down to people have different interests and different measures of happiness and satisfaction. It would get boring if we all cared about the same things.

okay so I'm seeing this pattern being repeated across this thread
basically people who have "already done it", i.e. have already parsed and got all hot and bothered about it, don't seem to want to do that endlessly for every single patch, every new savage tier, every new expansion
which begs the question: does parsing really matter when you have to do it all over again every 6 months to 2 years?
it feels like some endless carrot chasing that doesn't result in any long term reward or achievement, and more of a thing that you do when you're new and have something to prove.