[Mewse]

I think the community, by and large, is quite helpful to new players. That includes helping guide them onto paths that lead to the least amount of obstacles and headaches, so they don't suffer needlessly. This can be a grueling game at times, and the grind to 60 is a long, long ways away. So knowing which classes and combinations are the most effective is incredibly helpful in the long run. Want to roll a Dark Elf Necro? Great! But it's important to know that Iksar is hands down, without question, the best race for the class and the one that will provide the easiest leveling experience.

And while every class has their place, there are some like Wizard who get bent over pretty hard for almost the entire game. Your dps is terrible, everyone knows it's terrible, and that really sucks because it's a fun class. It won't prevent me from inviting one into my groups, but it will for a lot of people, and that's also important to know.

While I understand the point of your post, I think you're missing the idea of why people try to steer players in the direction of the min-max raid scene: Because they might get there. It would be an awful feeling to spend all those hundreds of hours leveling to 60, only to realize how much easier life would have been if you'd just rolled X instead of Y, and how much more fun you'd be having right now if you'd only done Z.