The loss of epicness, the gain of gear.

Hitting level 80 on my paladin two days ago, I was cnoforonted with a problem of how to gear him up. Do I jump right into heroics without gear, or do I do some regular instances to get gear. My answer came by way of the other newly 80 paladin in our guild. He was running heroics with mainly quest blues, and some BoE epics he had bought. It got me thinking about whether I was more concerned with getting gear, or feeling like I'd accomplished something when I has in an instance. There is really only one answer to that. With the dumbed down style of just AoE killing packs of mobs, epics and badges being thrown at you like candy, you can't really get that epic feeling of killing a boss, or getting a certain piece of loot. I miss that feeling, and I know more than a few people that don't play as often, or at all anymore because of the loss of it. When you got an epic in classic Wow, you were king for a day. You had done you work, killed the boss that other people couldn't kill, and gotten this amazing piece of gear.You could go strut your stuff in some major cities, and just show people how awesome you were. In BC, epics were more available that Classic, but still took work to get. That epic ring you wanted at the end of a heroic? If you plan carefully and have a good group, it might only take you two hours to get there. Along comes wrath, and in some ways I love the new way gear is handled, in others I feel like it takes the fun out of doing heroics. I can go into regular ToC and get epics. I can buy epics, or get them from reputation. I love this because I can easily and quickly get geared for raids, as that is what a heroic is preparing you to do, but do I really feel epic after spamming consecrate and everything is dead? I applaud blizzard for making a way for people like me, that might not have the time to farm for gear, to get into raids without spending a year gearing up. But, I want that epic feeling again, it was what drew people to raiding.