When WoW added cross realms to PvP battlegrounds it was an eye opener as to how good our realm's community was. Queue times got better, but the enjoyment dropped through the floor.
Oh well, you’ll never get to play with them again.
Killed all sense of community.
I know we recruited several people into a casual guild based on doing a few dungeons and getting on well with them. This was, ofc, before guild perks etc gamified that aspect in a shitty fashion.
Ofc you also got to learn people you never wanted to instance with again. Reputation mattered! As the Parent said, may as well be playing with NPCs.
I certainly don't have the time to spend on that sort of thing, so if it weren't for things like dungeon finder I wouldn't even play the game anymore. Same with other games, if there wasn't any matchmaking I probably just wouldn't play.
I'll take the shorter queue times thank you very much. Waiting for half a day for one battle was not acceptable.