Wow, I raided everything from classic up to heroic nefarion and nothing ever took that many attempts. The most I've ever spent on a single boss was probably mimiron at like 150.

Sorry bro, Irae AoD has killed every boss except Soa on Nightmare. And that was because of a bug that made him unkillable. Now that it's been fixed, I'm sure they've killed him too. No Kael'Thas? That was by far the most satisfying kill I ever got. Him and Vash'j. That feeling is caused by two things 1. The knowledge that the fight is very difficult and very few people have completed it other than you. 2. Failure. Without failure, success is meaningless.

Yes, dots/hots scale with haste in SWTOR. Haste was always the numero uno healing stat in WoW, I'm not sure why EJ would have said otherwise. Was that immediately after haste came out?

The damage that affliction does is near meaningless for lightning. What matters is that it's ticking, criting, and you have to cast it as little as possible