I see what you mean. I suppose I didn’t focus on that, and I usually try to avoid such extreme (or hyperbolic) wording, but I am really not fan of dual spec, and I did have some here.
Anyway:
Once you introduce dual spec, there is no need to accept that a healing capable class doesn’t have a healing spec and set, or a tank capable class having a tank capable spec and set, nor either have a DPS capable spec or set.
It might not be everybody that is affected by this, but for players who have characters for single-role responsibilities, this can cause stress, and does somewhat fundamentally change the nature of what they are doing.
In a hard-core sort of raid group, it might be expected that a character performing a certain role in a certain spec will maintain multiple raid sets and be willing to respec. Dual spec seems to have made that much more “the norm,” (anecdotally of course, as I don’t have data to back up that statement).
Some may argue that having dual spec may lead to people no longer reaching out to form groups, like a healer looking for a warrior and maybe a DPS for drop run farming, instead may be more inclined to just swap specs and do some solo farming, with similar behavior gradually resulting in more of a single-player feel than an MMO feel…
Note that this is assuming that deterring players from respecc’ing is unintended game design. If that is the case, then yeah… lowering respecc’ing fees does indeed seem to resolve the issue of being deterred from respecc’ing by high fees, while being incredibly easy (code wise) to implement compared to dual spec, and providing a much more equal access solution for all classes.
The changes to retail sort of show that this is where this change progresses, in gear that changes stats, and the ability to respec and retalent without incurring fees. Of course, it is a retail feature.
Possibly, but dual spec seems to miss the mark in so many ways that it would be unfortunate, in my opinion, if this change which is more complicated to make, requires more effort, and provides less benefit, while also causing issues (at least for some) is implemented.
Of course, I could be missing some things, and my personal perspective isn’t exactly an objective view of “the data.” (I don’t have any special access to any data, and the only thing that would really surprise me if I did was if I wasn’t surprised by what it showed!).
Will it? It might, but it might not. Dumbing down tanking also seems to increase the number of tanks and healers, or at least it seems that way in Retail, but that could also be because it has removed a lot of players from the playerbase by catering to people who are asking for changes.
EDIT:
Also found this:
Which supports that during the time, deterring respecs was intentional design, and thus dual spec would go against that design.