PS: Main reason I never raided in WoW until WotLK was because I came from FF11, where there were HAAARDCORE raids.
Dynamis, Sky runs, Dynamis, Sea runs, Dynamis, HNM camps, and especially Dynamis made me hate PvE so much that it soured me on PvE in other games as well.
It's literally like a job.
I was a super NEET at the time and by the time I started to dislike it, I was already one of the most geared people on my server, so I just coasted it out. But when I came to WoW and was at the bottom of the ladder, I knew what it took to become super geared and never went down that route.
It worked out well too because for TBC, WotLK, Cata, and MoP; if you were geared solely through PvP, you could more than defend yourself in World PvP. So I'd just do battlegrounds all day, arena and rated battlegrounds when I could, daily quests and fight opposite faction while doing so. It was super fun and gave me all the fulfillment I needed out the game. Then WoD came out, destroyed PvP in general, had shitty dailies to boot, and the massive world PvP spot wasn't nearly as good as Wintergrasp or Tol Barad.
A buddy of mine put me on to League and I've been getting my PvP fix from that ever since.
High end raiding is basically a job. You need to show on time consistently and need to be able to get along with people.