Then you have misunderstood the criticisms, i fear. People asked for a moderately grinding bit of content early in the expansion (something that is kind of an MMORPG staple), which the field operations is. Something they can spend hours in, if they want to, to work towards any kind of goal.
Now the first bit of content that allows you to spend a lot of time in (and that is not a room with boss raid) comes a year after the expansion release, which is definitely too late for a content that is designed to be played over a longer period of time. Non-Raid players will have had 11 months of no real repeatable battle content at this point. 11 months is a damn long time.
If CS3 had released something else in the meantime, like for example a Deep Dungeon in 7.1, or a smaller relic step, then those kinds of complaints would have been somewhat mitigated. Its not that the players want "field operations" sooner, they want "something to play" sooner than a year after expansion release.
Hope that makes sense!