TL;DR summary of this entry: This system combines all of what I hated about Algalon and ToC and makes it worse. Raiding used to be relaxing, the most frustrating thing was losing a few hours to bad internet -- when did Blizzard decide they needed to force 9-10 guilds in the world to get out of the house more?

Not looking forwards to dreading server instability and key people DC'ing again and ruining the week.

Summarizing this post from Daelo: Icecrown Citadel Raid Access Progression

First off, there's multi-week gates for normal mode icecrown. So your raiders will be bored. The good news is, this means we can probably get past the holidays without hard-mode raids, so holiday schedules will be easier.

The unlockings are (with "several" week breaks in between):

1. Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang
2. Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide
3. the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana'thel
4. Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available

The reasoning? Very clear this time, no beating around the bush: they're playing nursemaid and mommy:

"We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace."

Unfortunately that's all the good news. Because there's also an aggressively limited attempt model on both normal and heroic for Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King.

And these aren't your ToC limited attempts: this is *five* attempts. Have a main tank DC? Sorry, there goes 20% of your attempts for the week.

Don't live in Europe? Sorry, you don't get to see the most limited boss, Putricide, until live.

As more are "unlocked" you get more attempts: but of course, it's always still limited. And it's not that many more attempts: 5, 10, 15. And those attempts apply to all four bosses as well.

While the RP model of this is cute (the Ashen Verdict growing in strength and able to help you more) the pratical upshot of it is terrible, and this is the first time I have dreaded a dungeon release.

We play an internet game.

We play on remote, unstable servers.

Please stop having a larger portion of our success dependent on these factors out of our control.

Please stop feeling like you need to play the part of the Chinese government here and make sure raiders don't spend too much time in game. It doesn't matter if other guilds raid more than I do: that's the beauty of the instance and raid ID system. A handful of guilds playing too much doesn't actually change the experience of anyone else.

And the fact is, you still have significant gain from having a deep roster to get two 25's through, and/or spending extra raid hours on fully gearing up an alt crew. So your 7-day guilds still have an advantage, and still can raid the extra hours, it's just a less-obvious one and one that is less fulfilling to them.

The bright spot is there is no "tribute" like in ToC for a 'perfect' clear.

"In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel. To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time. Players may opt out of the spell's effect if they so wish."

This is the only other part that I like. It's basically gear-scaling, which Blizzard's dungeons have really needed. If you're slower to progress through the dungeon, you gain more gear (and these buffs) to make it easier, rather than having to figure out how to nerf encounters.