Actually, yes. It does bother me and it is the main reason why I have cancelled my pre-order and wont be playing the game once it goes live.

I'm not too fond of being just another clone in mmorpg's so I'll just wait for another game to come my way. If I was I would be playing one of the myriad of free asian-grinders out there.

As for the trait-system... no, the traits do  not make you "unique". Somewhat different perhaps, but as stated above you're still just as everyone else from your class with a 1-3% difference that most of the time doesn't even involve anything else but a healing or a to-hit bonus ... or similiar hidden/invisible traits.

"I played the game to level 22 and realized..."

That statement there nullifies your point.  As you have only locked 1 or 2 class trait slots and a fraction of your virtues, and probably ranked very few virtues up past rank 1 or 2, you really don't have the ability to intelligently discuss character customization.

On my 42 hunter there were large differences in builds.  And that was before all the class trait re-works that made them even more powerful.  On my 37 Minstrel there is a massive difference between different specs.  It all comes down to knowing what I'll be doing.  I'm glad I don't have a single spec I have to stay with all the time.  I'm also glad that the trait system only charges you for the traits you switch out.  This means that if I know I'm going to be light-medium on healing I can pick up traits that let me dps much more effectively.  Or a combination of dps and healing cast time decreases.  Or perhaps I'd best serve the group by converting several of my self buff skills to group buff skills.  Perhaps I'm going into an undead instance and virtues that lean heavily towards fear and disease resistances will help.

There is an awful lot of character customization at the higher levels and traits can make an incredible difference.  Class traits the 2nd largest, although Race traits are close behind.  And at 39+ you can start working on your legendary traits.  Every class has many of these and can only have 2 slotted.  The legendary traits typically grant very powerful skills, most more powerful than any you'll ever get from your trainer.  This is where the largest level of difference will come in.  But that won't show up until level 50 end-game where you really see differences in specs.

Of course, if I had played WoW to level 22 and compared my build to any other level 22 rogue, guess what.  I bet there would be no difference either.  Your trait/talent type systems really come into play in the end-game and are only a moderate enhancement as you level up.

you know what bother the heck out of me is the game is only number 3 over at Amazon.com in their list of best selling PC games. Darn thing has been number 1 at EB Games for weeks now. That bothers the heck out of me, but back to the topic all those people buying  do no seem to have a problem with it. Does not seem to bother the closed beta testers either if all the "are you buying" polls are correct since they indicate that betwee 75% and 85% have or will be playing in release. I bet some other games would die for that  rollover.

I really get a kick from topics like these because they seem to be made by people with little if any real knowledge of the game. The trait system is great, it allows a lot of cusrtomization without "locking" you into a build. But each to their own and everone is entitled to their own opinion and like I always say. Open beta begins April 06 and all it takes to find if the game is for you is a few hour download and if that is too much of a hassle then you probably are not reading this post anyway.

I think LotRO may have smacked class based customisation the right way.

If you call WoWs system unique then your just plain ignorant.

Traits are interesting and (some) take time and effort to achieve and (they all) don't out-balance classes. The traits system has only room to improve and we could end up seeing some very interesting ideas indeed.