As a person who actually prefers LFD, I still agree with a lot of the points you presented. I’m the kind of person who likes instanced PvE the most when everybody is on voice and we can have all the banter we want while still playing and such. It is meant to be a social game after all. But, with 5m, this for me breaks down because of two main reasons:
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It’s a lot more unrealistic to expect a 5m dungeon run to happen on VC than it is for a 10m raid. Of all the 10m raids I’ve done since TBCC, exactly one Karazhan and zero ZA have been voiceless. On the other hand, the near totality of 5m pugs I’ve done were voiceless. This drastically diminishes the social experience, because if I’m using my hands to play the game and do the pulls (or DPS, or heal, depending on the role), then I’m not going to use them to chat with other players, nor will they in return.
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The reward-to-effort ratio just isn’t there. The typical TBC dungeon gives about 3 Badges of Justice (I’m not even going to count the rest of the loot because, aside from a couple trinkets, it’s mostly easily replaceable). But everytime the chance to join a dungeon comes up, I’ve been telling myself, “Why should I spend 10-15 mins to get the group started (if not more), then get to the dungeon, spend another 15-30 mins to actually do that dungeon, and get away with 3 measly badges, when a single Karazhan run lasts less than 2h, gives me 22 badges, better loot, and is a better social experience to boot?” With LFD, at least, you can get your 3-4 emblems in a single 15-20 min run in WotLK, and you can chainspam those more easily - making it a more veritable alternative to running raids. The only reason why I would end up spamming heroic dungeons in TBC would be if I were truly desperate for Badges on my main, but thankfully I’m not.
Ofc I’m willing to concede that this changes in WotLK for reasons more than LFD: dungeons are shorter/easier/faster, emblems are more rewarding, etc. But LFD still plays a critical part in shortening the group-forming ordeal - which, in WotLK, would prolly take even longer than the dungeon itself (I mean, it already does in TBC sometimes).
In conclusion, I agree with your sentiment, but I tend to find that social spirit you speak of more in raids than in dungeons these days, and the cons just don’t outweigh the pluses anymore in my eyes. Dungeons, by and large, are a means to actually have fun in raids these days. At least for me. And sure, it will suck when my LFD run gets joined by numbskull ninjas occasionally. But it’s a price I’m willing to pay if the alternative would’ve been no run at all, and/of if it means more opportunities to gear up alts for raids and such where the real fun is to be had.