Feedback:User/Silverdawn/A better definition of "grind"

The game devs have put out a definition of grind as (I don't have the link handy, so I'm paraphrasing), "an unreasonable amount of time spent gaining levels or time spent gaining gear needed to become competetive with other characters of your level." That definition is leaps and bounds ahead of a traditional MMO like WoW, but it is a significant step back from GW1.

Allow me to propose a better definition of grind: The amount of time a game keeps you from playing the character you want to play.

I (and I'm sure a million other gamers just like me) tend to create a goal of what my character should look like at max level and advance my character towards that goal. I want to play that build; I don't want to play a wussy half-baked version of that build. Every moment that the game forces me to play a character I don't want to play is a grind in the truest sense of the word. What's worse is that in games with a very tall progression system, by the time I finally do get the character I want, the game is over and I get a very small window in which to enjoy it. With this in mind, is it any wonder there's such a thing as "runners"? People want the good stuff, and they don't want to be kept waiting for it.

GW1 (especially prophecies) did have this problem too, because some skills could only be found during endgame. However, it was still lightyears ahead of anything in its class, and the addition of tomes and campaigns with a quicker sprint to L20 only made things better. If GW2 was delivered in its currently proposed form, I'm worried it will have significantly more grind than GW1, providing a significant downside to the joys of dynamic events, dynamic skillbars, improved writing and all the other innovative, enjoyable features that GW2 promises.