I think I can help answer your questions Skribs. For number crunchers and those looking to size up their e-peens with everyone else in the game using a DPS meter, a Shot-Rotation is what everyone expects of a hunter. You become more efficient and deal more damage then if you just sat there and left it on Auto-Shot.
A lot of hunters I've talked to tend to not use this system mainly due to lazyness but also because they don't want to have to time everything down to the split second. Sure you can tell them, "If you just hit Steady Shot right after you shoot, you'd up your DPS by a lot!" they might be inclined to try it, but when you're in an instance or raid, as long as you're dealing damage, no one's really going to care about your shot-rotation but yourself.
Boss fights are a different story, you want to get in as much damage as possible. For hunter's this is easy to do. We can pretty much go all out, Feign Death, and start firing again. A shot-rotation helps us even more so we can maximize our DPS for these fights to take the bosses down that much quicker.
For some, this is fun, because you get to compete with your friends over DPS charts. But for others it's a tedious action that requires "work" and not play. I'm the guy in the middle. I love to maximize my DPS for the boss fights, so the boss gets down quicker, but I tend not to waste my time with a shot rotation on normal mobs, I'll just spam a few shots here and there and always make sure Scorpid Sting is on and I'm good. I could care less that a rogue, mage, warrior, whatever is out-DPSing me. The charts mean nothing to me, especially if the group dies before the mob dies.
I find the shot rotation to be more troublesome and bothersome for normal fights. I can go through my arrows really fast, or I can conserve. I won't do as much damage, but the group also isn't in danger.
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The game isn't about maximizing DPS or obsessing over 1 more point of agility to me. It's about fun.
I agree completely with this statement. When the game becomes more work and obsession over actually having fun, that's when I quit. There's no point in it for me. Everyone is different how they interpret fun though. Some people just love their shot-rotations and keeping track of their DPS. It's all about competition.