On the other hand the Skunk Works designed a mach 3 scramjet-engined titanium-bodied plane using slide rules and paper in the late 50s. If they say they think they can get small fusion reactors working within a decade, I'm willing to cut them a little more slack than I would some random physics lab.
Everyone gets the mine, fishing hut and herb garden anyway, no building spots needed.
There's GW2-style jumping puzzles and stuff with items or rare mobs at the end scattered around the zones, so I'm guessing that's one of the reasons.
It's not a great idea to try and make money right now - the pre-expansion patch goes live in a couple of weeks with WoD a month after that so pricing is...volatile. I'd say run auctioneer for a week then just watch out for real bargains (i.e. selling for 10% of value or whatever).
If you want...
Counter: Most people on the internet are fuckin idiots, so why pay for a game where the main (or only) interaction is dealing with fucking idiots? I put up with enough of that shit in my day job.