I would've agreed with that statement in 2013 but in no way is that statement true in 2016 since HOTS came out. Getting ascended can be done so, so much quicker.

Just to give you an example. I introduced a friend of mine in June to MMORPGs for the first time. He hadn't played one so gw2 was the perfect one for this (no sub, pretty friendly community etc.). I kinda quit again after a months but he stayed. He started with the 10g I gave him, you know when he had his fist legendary (Twilight)?

In the first week of september. Doing multiloot and such gives you such an insane amount of money, especially if you complement it with some decent trades that it's so easy to get something that should/is the most prestigous (I use that very loseley since so many people have one) weapon/armor it's insane. And remember, he was a new player to the whole genre and figured it out by himself. I didn't even know about multiloot.

If he wouldn't have made the jump with me to ESO he'd probably have a fully ascended armor in another month.

So other than raids, you can basically achieve the highest the game offers (in terms of armor/gear) in "just" 4 months.

That's still A LOT of playtime you get out of a game that costs only 50 bucks or so but saying several thousand hours of game time nowadays to get there is simply wrong.