Welfare Epics

As my first post in World of Warcraft discussion I thought I would hit on one of WoW's most debated topics.

First off, the term welfare epics is often used to describe gear that is earned easily or with no real effort. For the main part this is referring to raid equivalent epics which can be obtained by sitting in a battleground and doing nothing but run in circles.

Now let me say, my personal view on this is against the 'Welfare Epic system' People used to raid to the endgame so they had the best armour, so they could be 'better' than others. I never reached this level, I have not hit BT, but yet I still want to have these things to aim for. Now however a person who will very soon (In patch 2.4) will be able to buy these epics by doing nothing will be able to beat most players who have been raiding for months. (Due to resilience, a topic I will go to another time)

Now the arena itself is more understandable, It does take effort to get arena PvP, and it does take time. Though I would point out that the massive cost of mats and regents required for raiding is massive compared to that for PvP.

My main beef is, and always will be, with Arena gear being available to buy for something that requires little skill (Battlegrounds) and can even be obtained by doing nothing.

The counter argument is that Battlegrounds do take time and effort, that many people do not have time to raid or get the best armour and so forth.

I instantly dismiss the first two because

a) A weekend in battlegrounds can now get you several pieces of season 2 armour. (Something that would take months of raiding or arena)

b) While battlegrounds are better if you put effort into it, they do not necessarily require it. Battlegrounds are currently ruined because of the number of AFKers affecting them.

For the last argument, raiding does not necessarily take up that much time, if you are only playing one or two evenings a week then there are many guilds who would accept you as a casual raider. I personally only have time to raid once or twice a week at the moment, and yet I am still gearing up consistently. They people who say they have no time for raiding either do not understand the concepts behind it or have only looked at the application requirements of hardcore guilds.

And of course the ease of obtaining these epics has had server wide repercussions. Warriors and Druids all turned PvP spec, leaving nearly every server with a massive shortage of tanks, especially when all paladins turned Holy. Anyone who takes even the briefest look at raiding and instancing in WoW can tell it is broken, PvE is a dieing breed of people who play to progress now, not to be the best.

Does anyone disagree with this, or think they can prove me wrong?