Spooncraft

Why should the 25 man raids, which are no more difficult, except in terms of logistics, be rewarded BETTER QUALITY of gear as opposed to GREATER QUANTITY of gear?
The 25 person raid dungeons are likely to have more difficult encounters, on top of the logistical aspect, because with more players available there will be more things going on that they will have to adapt to.
I’m curious though, since both 10 person and 25 person dungeons will have their own progression lines, why do people doing only 10 person dungeons need to have their loot match the 25 person dungeons? The goal is to have the items dropped from the 10 person versions be fully sufficient to gear up and allow a group to continue progressing without forcing you into the 25 person version (and vice versa). (src)

Why should the 10 mans only become available AFTER the instance has been done on the 25 man level?
We haven’t made a final decision on how one will affect the other. Stay tuned for more details in the future. (src)

Do you really not see an issue with setting such a gear gap like the current arena system. ITs really stupid to give such advantages to people unless there is a small difference of say 10Item levels.
What advantages do you encounter relating to this? I’m just curious based on your personal play experience.
I’m a little confused on your example as well because we have said previously that the gear difference will be about 1 tier and yet you say it like 10 item levels is vastly different than this. (src)

The Current Gearing system is so broken its not even funny and you guys better shape the hell up and fix it for this new expansion.
We added a lot of item related things like the Arena and Badges of Justice in The Burning Crusade. After seeing how these things worked out we have a much better grasp on these things and we feel they will work out smoother when we have more solid plans involving them from the very launch of Wrath of the Lich King. (src)

I do not think Blizzard would lose money if it abandoned 25 man raids entirely. In fact, I think it would make more money.
So why not just spend the resources on MORE and BETTER 10 man raids, and just forget the 25 man raids?
For one, removing an aspect of the game doesn’t sound like a fun solution to anything. Also, we are planning these separate progression paths from the very beginning of Wrath of the Lich King and while I can’t guarantee any kind of timelines, this will help things run smoother throughout the cycle of content patches. (src)