There are so many things wrong with this post, I'm not sure where to start.
First of all, your assertion that "quest hubs, grinding, and gear progression are what make an MMO, and MMO in the firstplace among other items," is way off base, because there have been many MMOs without these mechanics that were quite successful. Asheron's Call STILL has servers (12 years later), and is not designed around raids, which quite honestly ruined the whole genre IMO.
GW2 has plenty of quests, they're just not retarded ones that ask you to kill 35 rats and collect 10 rat tails.