I have played almost all the MMORPG's , UO the longest. I have been playing DAoC for several years but quit a few months ago, also because of Trials of Atlantis.
IMHO Wow, in is its current state (beta i know
) is nothing but EQ+ with a few bells and whistles borrowed from other games. If Blizzard dont add something special to WoW before release i think they will miss a lot of the hardcore MMORPG'ers.
Regarding the flawed business model, i think the it hits the software pirates the hardest..