I think we need a Cheese Thread to go with the Whine Thread!

I complain a lot, I know. So why do I keep playing this game? Why do you? Here are a few of my reasons:

Ratongas. How can anyone stay mad at the people who gave us ratongas? Ok, so SOE removed cheesecake recipes from the game which meant my ratongas almost starved to death but they did bring them back to us eventually.

Mount appearance slots, possibly the best thing to happen since someone working for SOE said "hey, wouldn't it be cool if those EQ ratmen were playable?".

7 year veteran reward, a free mansion! How awesome is that. No Smedbucks required, everyone can get one as long as they wait.

House teleporters, and adding new easy-to-break-out-of (totally intentional from SOE's side, I bets cheeses on its) outside areas to existing houses.

Subtle realistic armour and weapons. No, I'm not taking the piss. Yes, I know, most of the new stuff is completely over the top but at least the old armour is still there and I can still wear it in my appearance slots. Everyone else might be running around with skull covered shoulder pads the size of kunark but I can just quietly tell myself that those are just...my character's hallucinations...from eating some tainted cheese... Or something.

Guides. Voluntary players who can run special guide quests and events, or just hang around and roleplay and hand out cheese and other goodies to people. The guide program is truly awesome (and no I am not a guide). At least when you meet a really great guide. I can't stand the ones who use smileys in /say or go "LOL", but luckily those are rare exceptions and most of the ones I have met so far are very good at it.

Live events. Both the special ones leading up to new expansions and the ones that return every year or month. The monthly instances, the city fair, lots of fluff stuff and no Smedbucks required.

I love the appearance armor system. It's very smart, gives people a reason to go after rare armor pieces even if they don't have good stats. I know I wouldn't want to be stuck with the bird hat that they decided to affix to most of the raid armor this expac, even though it looks better on a rat than most races. (Scout PVP hat also looks awesome on rats too, they did a nice job with that one)

And while its probably not very realistic, I happen to like my varsoon robe and it's very large happy skull shoulders. Makes my conjuror look like a necro though!

And BGs are kinda fun and I like the zones Kander makes and some of their art people are pretty amazing. Zones like conservatory were great to go through the first few times for the art alone. The Vig zones were pretty entertaining too.

Shinies, I love shinies, especially the ones with house item rewards.

The TSO instances that scale down to 50 so I can do them on my baby SK if I want.

Guild levels, with rewards, giving even those people who don't raid some common goals to work for as a guild.

Shinies I will agree with!
The sheer amount of housing customization, from types of house to the thousands of house items and open sandbox to play around with them in.
Finally making it so you can transmute AND tinker.
Adopting an appearance gear/mount system.
A bag of holding that I can put 1,238.43 types of event coinage into.
The billions of titles! Where else could I be Lady Daine the Bookbinder, or (something I saw once) Rubble-Rabble Rouser Ifoulitup Crazylonglastnameyo of the Tynnonium Shackle?
The lore-oh gods the lore. I came into the lore late and they retcon so much of it, yet it fulfills something geeky inside of me I never knew was there.
The satisfaction of finally killing a difficult raid boss. Thought I was gonna cry and have a heart attack the first time we offed Byzola.
The range of player styles, from casual crafter right up to hardcore raider.
My unicorn mount <3

Skull rat faces.