Just caught this thread. I understand the merit of the ideas presented by the OP. I've read through it all and frankly don't understand why there is that much opposition against a game idea where it looks like (not sure if I'm mistaken) you get to duplicate some of your characters into henchmen, and use them in a warfare scenario alongside others doing the same. This is Guild WARS right? Like I can see guilds where the players are the officers, in charge of henchmen (soldiers) fighting other guilds? Makes sense to me.
Really sounds like the best of all worlds from Dynasty Warriors, GW1, Baldur's Gate, and Conqueror's Blade but using the created classes and world in GW2 and creating new game modes (that sorta happens when you have new expansions, right?). When I first heard the name "Guild Wars" the thoughts that came to mind actually were close to what the Op is describing. Factional warfare...leading troops. Pretty sure he is right about those aspects with mounts, fractals etc being added well after the release of the game. So why wouldn't or couldn't this happen? All the friction just sounds like a lot of clamor over something that isn't even a bad idea... all these people do not represent all the players in the game or what they want. They just represent themselves...