Think that rant was pretty bad, I just view it this way:
Of course blizzard introduces the real money auction house (rmah) to make some more money and not because they are concerned about their players going to shady sites.
Preventing people from going to shady sites also makes them money because they will have to deal with less hacked accounts
They are a company with shareholders, they aren't some tree hugging hippie cult that only want to make their most diehard customers happy (those diehard customers will buy it anyways even after all the crying).
Blizz could also put part the rmah revenue back into development of diablo 3.
Sure diablo2 still got patches after the release, but besides the expansion pack there weren't real content updates.
About paying-to-win, diablo was never about world first competition or super serious pvp.
So if someone buys items it will hardly do anything to my gaming experience.
I will be playing with friends and people I have met online, just killing some monsters and having fun.
Pvp will be done through match making so chances are you might not even meet these pay-to-win guys because they are out of your matchmaking (item)level
People might put all the good items on the rmah instead of on the gold ah, but then I will just build up some e-balance by selling items/gold on there.
This way I can buy those items from the rmah without putting real money into it, so basically it would just be the same as getting it with gold.
Two downsides I can think of when it comes to the rmah are:
1. Greed, people will be less likely to give away items when you play with them because they might make some money when they sell those items.
This will come down to selecting the people you play with and nowadays in games people are generally dicks anyways so I don't expect much from randoms even if items weren't worth jack
2. Nagging feeling, what if some pro items drops that might sell for a decent price but is also cool for your char?
Now you are confronted with a real life decision in a game, make money or enjoy the item.
I think this will be the hardest part (for me) to get over
On other points:
No mods, ye no shit it's all online how would they make that work? afaik it was illegal to mod in diablo2 but they just didn't care so many years after the release.
The less code the hackers have to work with the better imo
Blizz might also add some more content because of the rmah revenue... or at least we can hope.
Always online, well this might not be super when you've got a bad connection and play hardcore mode but besides the fact that diablo is the most fun with friends and other players it's also 2011.. internet is everywhere.
Blizzard handling all the scripts/game info on their servers will also dramatically slow down the hacking of the game.
Hackers won't be able to test their hacks offline first and then go on and refine them to not be spotted online, so it's riskier for them.
Customization and skills, diablo 2 wasn't all that great on customization as these nostalgia heads make it out to be.
You put enough in strength to make sure you could wear your 'end-game' stuff an then added some dexterity and put the rest in vitality (and/or some in energy if you need mana).
You saved skill points till a high level (rushing to a high level only took a couple of hours) and then you picked some skills and spammed 2-3 the rest of your char's life.
Diablo 3 will be awesome, don't let all the raging guys get into your head.
It's the same for every game released nowadays and every patch to ever hit wow, people cry and think they know best.
In the end they still play and enjoy the game.
So that was a bit longer than expected hahah
Going barbarian in release most likely, what about you guys?
Will probably still try it out thou 
