Although I agree that a lot of loot from pre-TBC instances was complete garbage that nobody in their right mind would equip, I don't entirely see where the rest of the argument came from. Sure, they've somewhat trivialized the "epic" tag, but how does that apply to TBC instances having a boring architecture and flow?

And I don't think the loot is all that boring; there are still trinkets with a substantial variety of on-use or on-proc effects. If there was a little more depth to TBC instances they could probably afford to include some "fun" items like the Piccolo of the Flaming Fire, but while I think this would definitely add some flavor to a bland 5-man environment, it's not really the same as itemizing a bunch of terrible loot just to make epics that much more important. While difficulty and loot are an important factor in creating a fun dungeon, they don't have much to do with creating an interesting one.

I am going to disagree about Dire Maul. Yeah, East was largely a "Hey, here's a bunch of guys! Kill 'em!" kind of place, the other two instances were great, I thought. DM North was just plain fun, and DM West had a great feel, both in terms of lore and in terms of gameplay.

It was relatively challenging, had a few options/tricks about how you could go (playing Frogger with the Ancients instead of clearing all of them, choosing to clear to Kalendris or not, etc.), and the feel of the place was great. Even though there was only one big quest there, it was a doozy - Tortheldrin had summoned this Void Terror to power the city, you had to destroy it ... going from pylon to pylon, clearing this ruined city full of ghosts, demons and rogue elementals, and then going down into the pit with Immol'thar (full of the corpses of his captors) felt amazing. Not to mention that Immol'thar was actually an interesting fight; and then infiltrating the Library to kill Tortheldrin, man, it was pretty rad.

BRD *after* the loot upgrade was a pretty awesome place, but it needed about 25%-50% less trash. Clearing the Dark Iron Highway was murderous (particularly since pretty much every group patrolled - either up and down the way, or back and forth across the highway). The Ring of Law was always one of my favorite events.

The real problem is that the Pre-TBC instances had (well, mostly) excellent lore but often rather poor gameplay. The instances in TBC fit much better into a progression, contribute to zone-based questlines and reputations, and are a LOT more fun to run (though the 45-minute Baron run was awesome). They are actually kinda challenging, and going into an instance thinking, "Okay, what does this guy do?" is much more interesting than the dozens of bosses that are like, "Oh, a curse/poison to be dispelled, maybe this guy hits harder, or maybe there's a deaggro." *shrugs*

Overall, I'll take the newer style of instanced content - and hope that they remember to tie it in to the world a bit more strongly.

There seems to be 2 different mindsets when it comes to running 5 mans. Sometimes you just want to get stuff done quickly and efficiently, which the current TBC linear efficient dungeons were designed for. Then there's the "explorer" mentality, people who like to see new areas and new bosses and be generally impressed with a well thought out encounter or graphical design. I think there's room for both mentalities in terms of 5 man dungeon design. I think it's possible to design instances that have quick, linear parts as well as areas that satisfy the explorer mind set as well.

For example, lets say within Shattered Halls there was a seperate corridor that split off and lead to another boss that was completely optional but dropped some nice stuff. I don't think it's existence would diminish the experience for the people who just wanted to get in and get their trial done or whatever. The point is giving people options but not forcing them to go down a confusing path if they don't want to.