Why do it?

Why run a guild? You aren't going to get any financial reward for it. It's unlikely you will get much praise or thanks for the work you do.

In my times of reflection about what frustrates me about the guild, I often come back to the idea that I wanted to make a guild that I would enjoy. A guild based on a belief that WoW requires different things from people based on their goals in the game. A guild that I could "get behind" when it came to an ideal.

No one cares about that crap.

In my time as a guild leader, I saw a lot of good people come into the guild who were perfectly willing to agree to the policies. These people enjoyed playing with the guild, and they fit in well with the existing members. But they did not have any stake in the guilds design. As long as they got what they wanted, the concept of the guild, the design of the guild, the philosophy of the guild, was all irrelevant. This created situations were people only have input on how the guild operates when they don't get what they think they should get. And then, their solutions are designed to get them what they want, not to reinforce the guild concept.

The result? Your concept is worthless to the people enjoying it. There's no admission that you, and your concept, are anything other than a vehicle to get what they want out of their own effort. Is there any wonder so many guild leaders give themselves loot, or take cash out of the bank? There might be some rational to those actions, but it gets the guild leader something tangible that they want. And even then, if you are like me, the rewards and feedback you get will never be worth the hard work, the complaining, the gnashing of teeth that guild leaders must endure.