Garrett Fuller from mmorpg.com takes a look at the WoW casual vs. Hardcore issue in light of the recent NY Times article and the debate in the WoW forums. Here is a clip of the editorial:

Recently, the New York Times ran an article about the content in World of Warcraft. Basically, the article focused on the difference in player base and game play for the casual and hardcore gamer. Around the time of Halloween, I wrote a similar editorial trying to hash out the differences between casual and hardcore play. This debate is still raging among the Warcraft community. With 5.5 million players, not all of them can be hardcore. The article brings up some excellent points, which I will get to later. Although the real issue of casual vs. hardcore was spoken about by the reporter and Jeff Kaplan (Lead Game Designer for Blizzard), it certainly was not enough. I wanted to highlight a few things in the article and add what I think the player reaction might be. Being an avid player myself I certainly want to try to understand where Blizzard caused this huge divide of casual and hardcore players.

You can read the whole article here: Upcoming Content in World of WarCraft and the Recent NY Times Article.