Faction/race change?

WoWinsider asks this again. Here's what I think.

I'd really like to change faction. That wouldn't break lore, just have some people turn traitor. Happens all the time in war. Well, not often, but anyway. I'd pay a $10 fee to be able to play with my friends without leveling *yet another* character. But herein lies the issue, Blizz does all this stuff to add time to the game. The rep grinds, the money grinds, etc. They won't circumvent a mechanism to make you stay longer in the game than you normally would.

For example, consider this. I level an Alliance character to 70. Suddenly my friend starts playing Horde. I don't join him until he hits 70. Now I'm way behind him and the only option is to level a horde character to 70, which takes months realistically speaking (when you have lives and other chars, etc.) But by that time, said friend got bored of life at 70 and /gamequit. However, if I could just switch faction, I could easy transfer to play with him.

I think the worst part of this game is the level spread and faction. D&D has 20 levels (pre 4th ed), and of course no factions. It would be easy to start a character at level 1, and be able to play with a friend who is level 3. (Or more likely you are 10 and he is 13. Whatever). Its so damn hard to be able to play with friends unless you explicitedly lock the characters in sync, so that you do each quest in tandem. Otherwise its way to easy to outlevel. By the time there is a 3 level gap you are basically screwed, one if you will have to stop playing and let the other catch up.