I can sympathize with the OP. My gaming time is hardly abundant so it would be nice to have some incremental xp rewards.

My first thought when I came to this game is: "Wow.. no more farming area "X" to respawn the 3 brajillion orcs I need for next level! I like that!" (NWN's based experience).

I personally have never played WoW. Why?
Simple. I did the math. WoW makes what, 30$ each subscriber times how many MILLION people playing it? No.. I will NOT encourage that sort of greedy behavior.

Why do I play DDO then?
They gave me the OPTION to pay-to-play. THAT's why DDO is not like WoW. And yes, I am a VIP now for the whopping 10$ a month. To me, it's worth it. Had they charged it up front and made it mandatory I would never have bothered.