As soon as you institute both a grind and a carrot on a stick (rewards for said grind; IE Heirlooms, bonus xp, etc) then the focus inherently becomes about grinding, rather than enjoying the game itself. This is a time investment, not instant gratification, therefore having an attachment to one's uber-grinded character is actually completely normal and rational. Time is finite for us and so typically when someone/thing wastes said time there's bound to be a negative emotional response.
If it was about playing the game and enjoying the game everyone would simply have skip the fun level 30's with no heirlooms.
I guess your somewhat right. But Alexander didn't get it that bad, he retired, got a loom point, and didn't loose his char. I would completely understand him being pissed off if his char got perma-killed, but it didn't. This is the case where one should look on how much fun they had with their char going to lvl 32 instead of thinking of how much time they "wasted" playing to that point. The grinding you're talking about is different to what Alexander was doing, he wasn't retiring at 31, he was going to lvl 35 i'm guessing. Personally, the only part of the game that I focus on grinding over playing is the initial lvl 1-15 jump that one needs to make in order to have a chance at contributing (unless you count being a peasant-target contributing
). So I guess I don't understand the feeling Alexander and others are showing, for that I apologize. I do not, however, apologize for stating my opinion of the situation.