We're enjoying thoroughly the heated debate that we are having various aspects of wow raiding this does not mean that all of people hold the same opinion. To improve that understanding, we are asked for to explain why: It appears that the more skilled raiders consider boss fights with optional added difficulty as an unnecessary gimmick, or artificial obstacle, not a valid challenge.
   We killed Sartharion only with all drakes killed, so we don't have the experience of how it would be with 1, 2, or 3 drakes up. But obviously with drakes it is harder. And we checked the loot tables, and killing Sartharion with drakes up is well rewarded with additional and better epics. So we have optional higher challenge for higher rewards. Why isn't that more popular with people who are complaining about a lack of challenge in the current environment.
   The relative difficulty of downing Sartharion with 3 drakes up might be properly compensated by the additional epics, but the question comes down to whether the raid feels it necessary to do so. Three or four more epics a raid may be more efficient, but that's only as far as the gear offered is a good improvement over what the raid already has, and how vital that gear is for the next chapter of progression. If a guild is ultimately aiming for beating the end of WoW, then the faster they can get everyone geared up the better, but some guilds are probably looking at this fight and simply taking a sure-kill (path of least resistance) and accepting a longer gear-up phase.
Maybe this will change when Arthas gets patched in, and guilds are progressed further such that 3 drakes become closer in difficulty to the present no-drake set-up. I think the general rule about players taking the easiest path available applies here. After all, organizing 25 people is hard enough, can you imagine the headache and frustration born form pushing the 3-drake kill, and keeping everyone motivated enough to try that hard? After the third or fourth wipe, Vent would be full of cries to just do a 0-drake kill and be done with it.
Satharion with three drakes up is kind of fine. The trouble starts with achievements like "all players in the group have to get impaled by the rhino-boss", where you have to stop dps, endure hits and wait until he is finally done with hurting your party until you can kill him, which would have been possible three minutes earlier.
A dragonkiller who is set to help people shouldn't try to increase difficulty, he should try to kill the beast as fast and safe as possible to ensure his job is done and he will live another day to serve different people.
It's because Sartharion 3 is just a question of DPS, just as Malygos in 5 Minutes. As the drakes get into the fight one after another you have to get the first drake down before the third joins the fight. It's no problem to handle 2 drakes at a time, but 3 are way too much. After you got the first drake down and all the small adds under control (/nuked) it's just a Tank'n'Spank with these little Super-Mario-escape-the-lava-thingy.
In effect that's the problem with all Wrath of the Lich King bosses. You just need a bunch of mediocre-playing people who do normal DPS and aren't movement-gimps to beat them because raiding alone is no challenge. We guess it's time for us to quit WoW and focus on something more challenging.