[jeffy162]

I would like to add one thing to this: If any one seriously thinks that Blizzard simply "can't copy the functionality" of any addon that they would care to, I think that you are sorely mistaken.

I believe that, in this case, they just do not want at least some of the function's of Carbonite as a default feature in the World of Warcraft game. That, to my way of looking at things, is absolutely the ONLY reason that it is not a default feature of the game.

One thing to remember here is that they would have to fit Carbonites features in with their philosophy of how they want the game to look and work. I don't know about anyone else, but I have found Carbonites "infinite zoom" functionality quite handy on several occasions. Imagine what would happen if that were to be limited to just six levels of zoom like the default Minimap, and, basically, no zoom on the World Map. That's just one of Carbonites features that doesn't fit in with Blizzards vision of how the game should look / work. It's their game, so it's going to look and work their way in the default version that you purchase. That's, probably, one of the reasons they allow addons. And don't forget this: If they really didn't want an addon to be used in their game with Carbonites functionality, they would just break it. It's been done before.

I don't know about anyone else, but that's not looking like so much of a good idea to me.