I don't think it's really an issue, the grind will always be there in some shape or form. No one is "forcing" anyone to xp 10 hours a day to get max AA's etc... The hardcore gamer will go all out (and if so what is the big deal? since the aa trees are capped), those who invest less time will go at their own pace. The point is that every "activity" you do post 50 involving mobs will yield some form of character development reward.
My biggest beef with WoW was precisely this issue. When your character development is based on gear improvement it trivializes a huge portion of the content you did in order to get to the end game. Seriously, if you were decked out in the best raid gear there was NO POINT whatsoever to run any instances or do quests (other then random faction). WoW countered this issue by offering an alternate game (PvP BG,Arena) and by simplifying the leveling process to the point that everyone could hit max level on 8 toons in no time.
Some of my friends loved "starting" over a toon, lvl a twink from 1 to whatever level wow is at now, then redoing the process all over again. Why would they ever need to log on their main besides raiding? Alternate Advancement was not a perfect system, it's grossly unbalanced (depending on expansions) but it gave the purists a way to improve their characters other than gear.
Why is that important? First, it gives new life to all previous old content. Farming is nice but xp'ing is a better reward. Raiders currently don't do anything other then make new twinks or try to farm plat in some form. Classic is congested but by the time we get a few more expansions there will be lots of xp grounds available that will be utilized even after you hit max level. It gives new life to the game for those who do not enjoy alts in any shape or form.
Second, it gives a chance for those who can't raid (due to RL schedules) to improve their character through other means besides gear. I.e You don't need to be in the top end guild to get a powerful toon.
Lastly, your time investment (towards character development) feels less cheated should you need to take a break for whatever reason. Classic example of this in WoW:
Player A is the best tank on the server on the first 3 expansions because he invested 982392843 hours at the raiding game. His RL job situation changes which forces him to take a break for an entire expansion. Player A comes back on the 5th expansion and though he may be more "skilled" and "experienced" his character does not reflect the time invested as random noob player B (who started a month ago) ends up having a more "developed" toon based on gear level.
Think of AA's as character development that stays beyond expansions. I.e something that's worth grinding for (if your actually going to grind for something).
At any rate, I'm not advocating to implement the AA system as is (as the live system is pretty retarded). People signed up here to have a "classic" experience and not "we'll make stuff up as we go along" EQ so not having AA's will not be a big deal. It was just my two cents on the concept of character development besides the gear grind.
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