I know I'm probably really late to the party on this, but...so what?
Background first. I really only ran LFR a couple time during DS. I just didn't need stuff and I preferred to run with guildies and avoid all the asshattery I read about at the time. Fast forward to MoP. The first couple months, I wasn't really able to put much time into WoW. My work schedule was hectic and I was out of town quite a bit. Around early December, that cleared up a little and I was able to start focusing on getting a toon raid ready. I also decided to switch raiding mains from Druid tank to holy Pally. I really didn't/don't care much for the active mitigation style of Guardian tanking and being late to the show, I didn't really want the pressure of learning dungeons and heroics as a tank that was behind the curve. So, I switched to my pally, which has always been my primary alt (dating back to BC when I rolled my first holy pally alt). Got geared up relatively quickly through dungeons, rep stuff, and the help of a couple guildies. Then, I was able to hit LFR a couple times in the last few weeks, going for a few upgrades so I'll be better geared/prepared for raiding with my guild.
Okay, so here goes my thoughts on LFR:
1. LFR raids are a joke. The mechanics are so watered down, you basically have to be an idiot to fail. Or, perhaps even catatonic. Even though I've seen all the bosses in LFR, I don't think I'll be very prepared for real raiding because LFR just seems so simple that it isn't really teaching me anything. It's not a challenge. It's almost like steamrolling older content, it just takes longer to kill things because they have so much hp.
2. I don't really feel like I'm doing anything to contribute. Okay, I know I am, I can look at the meters and see that I'm contributing. I'm not topping healing meters, or anything, but I wouldn't really expect to at this point, since I'm only recently up over 470 iLvl. And, I don't really care if I top meters anyway. I just don't feel like what I'm doing matters. It seems like the raid will succeed regardless of what I do or don't do. Going back to point number 1, it just doesn't seem like a challenge.
Maybe part of this is because LFR is 25-man. I don't know. It's been a while since I really ran 25s. My guild has mostly been 10-man since Wrath. But, I just feel like 25-man LFR negates any individual contribution.
I know the LFR is really there as a bridge to the normal mode raids, but it just seems like loot pinata, without much challenge. Hell, even back in the day of Loot Reaver, you could ***** it up and fail. I'm not trying to make this a rose-colored glasses, get off my lawn type thing here...LFR just seems too watered down. At least for me, maybe it's what most people want.
Again, I know I'm late to the party and this has probably all been said before. But, I thought I'd air my thoughts anyway. What the hell, the board's been pretty slow lately. :-)