They can. But to put the inconvenience and downgrade into perspective, that’s like asking 4k-resolution fantasy movie fans to ONLY enjoy acting via regular theater performances on stage with local actors in bad costumes.
Unless Blizzard adds an in-game Roleplay interface for Roleplayers on RP realms, most will never support your idea, myself included.
You asked the question on “how you feel about addons”, so I’ll answer with my own feelings and opinions.
Mostly, all addons are a crutch.
As in, they are a shortcut to avoid learning the mechanics of some instances and quests.
Don’t want to work, use the addon.
But even with addons, I see a lot of people FUBARing things that even an old (49) slow-learner like me get right after a couple of mistakes.
Yes, I indeed do a lot of mistakes. Never the same twice though, that’s how I learn.
A few addons are almost required if you want to be “ranked in the competitive scene” : raider thingy and it’s various depencies.
Most of the others are “quality of life” things, like Gather Mate if you really need a ton of ONE specific mineral or plants.
And some other addons, mostly WAs and things like Hekili, are actually misleading and counterproductive, you’d need a degree in Programming Languages to actually make them work, and they prevent the players from actually learning how to play the game.
0k, I’ve had PUGs with people saying “mechanics are for noobs, just do damage” … and of course, those resulted in too many wipes and broken keys, or whole evenings on Raids for nothing.
I’m actually reducing the number of addons I use, only keeping things like HandyNotes and TomTom for “quality of life easier travel”, and of course raiderIO because NO ONE will accept you in a PUG if you don’t have a rating on that darned thing.
But for everything else, I use the default UI, that is quite sufficient, and my brain to learn what I should or should not do in some instances.
Very short versions : some addons can help you get started, most of them are either counterproductive of harmfull, and the cosmetic ones that allow you to change your UI should be included in the base game (and they are, to some extent).
I feel like the irony is the best way to not need TSM is to remove TSM from all players.
Seems like a self-reinforcing cycle.
If blizzard designs a terrible AH that can only be used properly with the help of addons, then the solution is not to remove addons but to fix the AH.
Same goes for the insane spell clutter on several fights. The friendly spell effects have 10 colors, beautiful smoke spiraling and blocking half of my screen, while the ground AOE that oneshots me is a transparent orange fart.
Addons didn’t create these situations, they’re just trying to make this game playable.
As far as I know healers are complaining the most about it. They simply need addons to heal because Default UI is not good enough for healing. As for dps classes, as a rogue, when I open all those so beneficial addons my screen would be filled with bars. I had to take care of my dps rotation, at same time I needed to check boss fight bars. It was like torture so I used only dbm pull+ dmg meter and I was doing same dmg and I was better at dodging stuff. I was actually learning the fight better instead of being a robot.
Auction side of addons such as TSM is far worse. Post/cancel/cancel scan, well those are even abused by people who sits 18 hour per day in front of PC do same thing. After post/canceling a lot, game tells you stop, so you start canceling your stuff in 10 seconds instead of 1 second. People found also another way to abuse it by simply using 2nd,3th -10th accounts. Can you sell anything if that person do it like a RL job. TSM style addons are letting this to happen. But macro ability is the one that leads almost automation.
So some essential addons could be in game by like default, rest could be chopped off.
Haven’t got any addons yet. Can’t know which sites to trust for addons. I’d just like to see my DPS and improve it
Curseforge.
Curseforge.
They will talk smack to you if you don’t use their Malware Machine through Overwolf. I download my AddOns manually.
You do you but alpha pureblood gamers such as myself don’t need to rely on hacks and cheats to excel at this game…
What if I dont need ti, but want it out of laziness?
Laziness is always an acceptable reason
Addons are actually illegal according to blizzards own LUA.
And Addons is what makes this game unfriendly to newcomers if you ask me.
Wow should be an plug and play experince.
I havent even counted my own addons, but i think i have atleast 30? And thats not counting all the different WAs.
Edit: and then we arent even talking about all the different class specific macros you need to create to optimize abilities.
AddOns that change in-game files are illegal.
Like, an AddOn that changes your player model to look like something else - that’s illegal.
It is - you’re not forced to use AddOns to play the game.
You are correct in the sense of casual gaming.
But if you wanna push keys/arena and raid with a guild.
Then addons is a mandatory phenomenon in wow.
It absolutely can be used without addons.
It may not have features such as recommending buy prices, and undercut warnings; but if zero players have those features, then it is a level playing field.
The problem with addons arises when only some people have them. Exactly none are required to play WoW, but if half of players use them, then it’s a major disadvantage if you don’t.
I’ve never used TSM, and I aint gonna.
There is probably a reason to use TSM when you sell thousands of things constantly. But i am a simple player so i am very occasionally selling something. No need of TSM 
I agree, but in some cases not using them makes your game experience miserable. Before the AH revamp it was littered in stacks of 1 items and trying to buy stuff manually was a pain, and got you “item not found” most of the time.
Addons provided a better way and eventually blizz solved the problem, eliminating the need for addons in this particular scenario.
If blizz thinks an addon is breaking the spirit of the game, eg automation or displaying info people shouldn’t see, they can easily change it. But in general addons show what quality of life upgrades people want to see, and the fact that it takes blizzard 20 years to incorporate them into the base UI is not our fault, nor our problem.
That’s how I am too… I very rarely bother putting things. I put lots up when I’m cleaning my guild bank however on mats.