I had over 300 days logged on my main, vanilla through cata.
For me, and I think most people with an obscene amount of time logged - we weren’t there for the game, we were there for the guild. It’s been years since I played, but I’m still in regular contact with some of those people - WAY more so than old friends from school and such.
Those folks were my digital family - I don’t regret those hours for a second.