[SDPhantom]

Most, if not all the rants I see in this thread were posted by normal players, while all the addon authors commend Blizzard for incorporating ideas brought on by various addons.

Most of the time, these actions provide additions to the API that lighten the load on client systems when dealing with gathering and manipulating data needed for the use of such addons.

Take the new threat API added in with the 3.0 patch. This was handled by a specific Threat lib used by different addons like Omen. The matter of data collection, manipulation, and synchronization, was all ported over to WoW's C code. This was much more efficient and accurate than any addon code could be. Instead of an addon trying to gather damage and healing done while trying to apply talents to come up with a number resembling a player's threat level, WoW's API can just look at the mob's aggro table.

Even though Blizzard never completed their built-in threat meter, the changes to the API took a burden off of many authors' shoulders, including my own, and many other changes opened up possibilities, letting addons do what was previously impossible.