Second Life Learning Curve

I play World of Warcraft and am very comfortable in that virtual world. I can tell you how to get from Nethergarde Keep to Crystalsong Forest. I can tell you the difference between Night Elves and Blood Elves. It's very easy for me because I've spent so much time immersed in that world. It is extremely user-friendly and after some experience, easy to play. I've dabbled in SL before, but today was the first time I've really sat down to scratch a little more of the surface. I'm going to list a few of my first impressions.

1. The graphics are rather boring and drab compared to the rich surroundings of WoW.
2. The character and camera controls are extremely annoying, whereas in WoW they are quite intuitive.
3. The inventory consists of a series of menus. In WoW, you can open bags.
4. The movement was choppy and it took a long time to render graphics and the environment. In WoW other than lag spikes, the environemnt is seamless and renders quickly.
5. I found the communication options cumbersome, whereas in WoW it is easy to chat with individuals or groups of people.

I realize that SL and WoW are very different. However, I found it interesting that on the loading screen, it would give the total # of people online at that particular time. I think when I was logging in it was 83,000 people or so. Now that sounds like a lot, but it is dwarfed by the several million WoW players that are on at any given time. I realize SL can be much more complex in some ways than WoW, but I think that if they simplified the user interface and made the experience more user-friendly, it would have a much wider audience.

I get the feeling that SL is a more "serious" thing than MMOs. But I can't help but wonder if this "seriousness" is what's holding it back and if it is something that will eventually doom it?

This is pure opinion, but I think that game-based virtual worlds will always have something that worlds like Second Life don't have--a higher "fun" factor. I think that it will be interesting to see how virtual worlds develop from here. Will they continue down the SL path or will they blend the current SL model with other elements of MMOs?